sexual exploration or is it more???

[scaredmom2]

My son is 9 years old and My bestfriends son is 10.  We have been friends since before we had our boys.  They have been friends for a very long time but in the last year they have been able to spend more time together because we both bought houses in the same subdivision.  My son was at my friends house with her mom supervising the kids.  She fell asleep watching TV and when my friend came home she could not find the boys.  Then they ran out of a room and she knew something had happen. Her soon told her right away in private that they where doing nasty things that they were not suppose to be doing.  Touching each other and putting themselves on each other.  One child says with there clothes on and another says with there pants down.  My son denied it over and over.  After about an hour of begging for the truth he said they went in the closet and touched each others butts with clothes on.  The next day with more questioning he admitted more and more untill his story was the same as his friends.  I asked why he kept lying and he kept saying he was scared.  I have talked to him before about sexual behavior, that he should not allow anyone to touch him or vice versa.  I have asked if anything has ever happened to him and he has always denied anything. he says he  knows it was wrong but cant explain why they did it and why he didn't tell anyone or run from the closet.  I have been looking up sexual behaviors in boys of their age and just don't know was this just curiosity and normal or should i be concerned about abuse.  My son has ADD and sees a psychiatrist she has asked him about sexual abuse upon my request because of an unrelated family event with older cousins.  I just wanted to make sure they had not hurt him but they have about a 10 year age gap and we were very rarely around them but just knowing what happened between my cousins, i just wanted to be sure.  His doctor said that she believed nothing had happened to him after questioning him while i was out of the room. His lying especially about something like this is also very concerning.  We have had problems with lying before but i never thought he'd lie about something this important.  I just don't know what to think and what to tell my friend, both of us have suffered abuse as children and were very cautious with our boys not letting them go to public restrooms alone and non trusting of any men.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

Since you and the other boy's mother are good friends, you will be able to manage this well. Be sure you are bothlearning, as best you can, of any encounters with each other or with other people the boys might have had. All you can do is ask and use your instincts to tell you if you are likely getting the whole story. If you find that there is nothing else to take into consideration, focus on setting clear, simple limits on this behavior: It is not allowed. You do not touch other people and you do not permit yourself to be touched. Be sure to let him know to inform you if anyone approaches him. These sorts of situations can be difficult to manage because we are always left to wonder, at least a little bit, if we know the 'whole story'. But all we can know is what we know, so we have to move on. Don't woory so much about his not having been truthful from the outset. That's a pretty normal response: children are concerned that they are 'in trouble' and want to avoid that. But let him know, as I'm sure you have, that you expect truthful behavior and, if you discover he is lying, discipline him for it.

[Psyinfo2]

scaredmom2,

First of all I would like to tell you that your son