HAS MY THREE YEAR OLD BEEN ABUSED?

[snglma]

I know it appears I am not dealing with stress very well.  Let me tell you about myself.  I am a nurse, I am 23, and a single mom.  I had my career before deciding to have a child.  His father is nowhere in the picture and has only seen him twice.  The stressful thing that is happening with me is that when I got back I came home to a different child.  10 months can change a baby drastically.  When I left he was barely forming sentences, now, he speaks in conversations and has imaginary discussions.  Before I left I was the primary person around my son other than daycare.  He went to live with my father and step mother when i left, and continued at the daycare.In that home is my 13 y/o sister and two young teen foster boys.  In April of this year, my parents told me that his daycare had notified SRS of possible child abuse, of course I was alarmed and stuck in Kuwait with no way to get to my child.  I called and discussed the allegations with my daycare, I called all four of my parents, I called SRS myself.  He had found his penis in this time period and had become very interested in showing it off and playing with it.  The daycare found this alarming because of the amount of time he was spending on it.  Also, he made the comment that he was making lotion while he was rubbing himself.  After hours of crying and trying to figure out the situation, my parents explained to me that after his bath, when he is being lotioned they have him do his own genitals out of propriety.  I asked him on the phone and he denied anyone touching him inappropriately.  SRS never investigated the situation, we all decided it was him reaching out for some form of comfort because he may have felt abandoned that I had left.  ( I left for Iraq in January of 08)  Nothing else notable happened.  Then I came home.  The daycare almost immediately began reporting behavioral incidnets to me.  I was called numerous times, and they stated that my son was showing his penis again, and had even asked two other children at the daycare to suck his penis! Where did my baby get this idea?   I began thinking and he had recently seen my cousin breastfeeding and had been asking me to suck his ninnies and if he could suck mine ever since.  I had a conference with his daycare, and my parents again, and it was not founded that he had been left alone with anyone or that he had seen any adult television.  Now, I have a thirteen year old sister and there are two foster boys of teen age that were around him for months.  As any one well knows, most teenagers do not think about what they say having repercussion and the echo effect in the mind of a toddler.  About a week after the incidnet with the other children at daycare I got a call that my son had been to the potty with a teacher and he told her, look my penis is hard for you, do you want to suck it? I took him out of daycare, quit my job to stay home with him to get to the root of the issue.  I never see this kind of behavior out of him.  He plays with his penis still, but from what I have observed it is  more of a toy.  He calls his testicles bones, and I corrected him now he says tentacles.  He showed me that he could turn them into a bat the other day by spreading them out.  He also pantomined that his penis was a gun.  He doesn't see it as sexual.  I have explained to my son that playing with his penis in front of people is inappropriate and he is allowed to have his own time if i find him doing it.
A couple of times we have found my son with my same age nephew, and my son has been touching and pulling on his penis.  This has happened about three times, and each time my son and nephew were corrected of the inappropriate behavior.  
The clincher. The other day my son was being minded by my uncle.  My niece who is also the same age was there.  My mother showed up and her and my uncle stepped outside to talk.  my son said that he was gonna go to sleep and went in the bedroom with my niece.  My mother and uncle heard my niece crying and upon entering the room saw my sons pants down, my nieces pants down and she was crying.  My cousin the mother of my niece told me later that my niece said my son was touching her vagina.  My mother, when she found the two children, hit my son so hard that he still, four days later, has a handprint bruise on his face and neck.  
My mother, sad to say, won't be seeing my son or talking to me for a long while.  In the meantime my cousin, mother, and grandmother, and uncle, have decided that somehting sexual must have happened to my son in my absence.  My cousin has threatened me three times that she is going to 'turn me in' for ignoring the situation and not getting my son help.  
Frankly, I am appalled.  I QUIT my job to stay home with my two almost three year old to get him on the right track.  I find myself watching his every action sometimes and trying to see if there is anything indicating abuse.  I MEAN, I WATCH EVERYTHING HE DOES AND I ANALYZE IT.  To top that off, I turned the situation into a special investigator to rule out child abuse, or find it, and get help for it.  And I have made appointments with mental health professionals for me andmy child.  
Everyone says I am in denial, but I am a trained professional to look for this kind of thing.  I have also been researching extensively to make sure I know hte signs well.  Who are these people to tell me that I am in denial and not doing what is best for my child? I think I am doing everything I can, and I am not denying anything.  My son is intelligent (very) and curious, and I see nothing outside of that.  

[momagain59]

"Also, he made the comment that he was making lotion while he was rubbing himself."  This comment alone would make me wonder if he had witnessed someone ejaculate.

"had even asked two other children at the daycare to suck his penis!"  Children do not think up oral sex on their own. How would he know that he would like this?

"look my penis is hard for you, do you want to suck it?" This sounds like something that he has heard before. Why would he say it was hard for anyone?

"He calls his testicles bones" I have heard guys call it a bone when they are hard.

I hate to be the one to tell you but I would suspect some kind of sexual exposure at the least. He knows too much. Believe me, kids do not always answer questions honestly when it comes to abuse. Please do not give up. Something has happened somewhere with someone. I would get your son into individual therapy for a long time. It will take him awhile before he opens up about what happened. He needs to learn to be appropriate around others so he can be safe. I would not let him out of sight with another child.

[AnnaE]

I admire the advice you gave to David, about his son. You are very wise about children, even at age 23.

If I were you, I would be going nuts. I have along history of abuse as a child. My neighbor and friend, or now not-friend, propositioned my daughter when she was 14 and he was over 40. She told me about it immediately, and he was confronted.

I recognized later that he has all the characteristics of a perpetrator:overly kind an solicitous of others, to the point of manipulation, I became a friend of this couple, because he is so kind to his sister--to a point that it was surreal. My brothers abused me, so I thought he was just wonderful. I was fooled.

Today I know those signs, Maybe you could watch for these signs among the people who have been around your child.

Could the teen Foster boys have been abuse and are now acting this out? There is a high likelihood that they were abuse. Maybe he just saw them or someone else say and do some odd sexual things? The signs are that he was abused in some way, and that,
as you say, he is extremely bright.
You have a mystery on your hands, and you are saying and doing the right things to solve it, for the sake and the future happiness of your innocent child.

Make sure that you take time to play with him, take him to the park, and to do other healthy activities. Eat well and sleep well. Do things to especially make him feel loved and accepted.

[margypops]

You may get answers from the same people as on your other thread, and also some new ones, it may be an idea for you to ask on the Expert Doctor forum regarding this I also think there are some issues that need addressing with your son and you do need some help, go to see your Doctor and tell him all you have said here and ask what you can do ,get some expert help.