Young babysitters

[silly400]

I have a friend, who is in her early twenties, who recently confided to me about something she remembers doing while babysitting two young children when she was only 11 years old, and I'm wondering if she really should feel so guilty about it.  

She told me how one night, she was left in the care of her neighbour's two young kids.  One was about 5 or 6 and the other was just a baby.  She told me how at one point, she was tending to the baby while the older child was off playing in another room.  She told me how she started thinking about breastfeeding and wondered if a baby would take a breast that wasn't their mother's.  As a curious 11-year old in the beginning stages of puberty, she decided she wanted to see, and pulled down her shirt to see if the baby would take it.  Obviously, the baby didn't, and so she pulled her shirt back up.  She told me that she felt bad about it after, once her guilty 11-year old mind realized that was inappropriate behavior.  

I personally believe that she was just being a naturally curious 11-year old girl who was not acting in a sexual manner.  I trust my friend with my life, so I believe her when she says she never did anything beyond that incident.  My opinion is she should just forget about it and realize she was just being a kid and acting upon a young girl's curiosity.  If she had been an older teenager, now that would be a different story!  Now I'm not a mother yet, and she isn't either, so the question I pose is what is your take on this?  Would this be considered 'normal' or 'typical' behavior for an 11-year old child?    

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

It would be perfectly reasonable to put this incident in the past and stop dwelling on it. Was it imprudent to do what she did? Yes. Was it a major transgression? No. It's part of growing up to do things that are impetuous and wrong-minded, but at the time we do them we do not have the wisdom we acquire as we mature.

[ceecee107]

A related discussion, 11 Year Old was started.