I also wanted to add that if a mother protects a child that is a potential harm like this and sympathizes with him/her, she teaches the other children to feel as though they should do the same.

I would have to say that as I think back, I can remember my mother struggling to understand how to love my brother. There were always fights between my parents about my brother. And it goes ALL THE WAY BACK FOR ME.

I remember being only three years old and on the swings "trying to enjoy my childhood" when my brother and the boy next door pulled me off the swing and pulled me into a shed where no one could see. And it was my brother who wanted to "share" his "victim" with this other boy. And they took off all my clothes and were staring at me. And all I could think about was if now it would be two boys climbing on me, holding me down and doing what my brother did to me that I had no way of understanding. My whole childhood I was constantly frightened and had to endure way too much. I never felt "safe".

I am just trying to give you "reason" to convince this mother to take action and get help for this distrubed child before the other children have to suffer anymore. Before the other children seeing the mother protecting this one child will learn to feel that they have to somehow do the same.

No child should have to grow up like that. This situation should be handled by professionals that can work with this troubled child and also the mother that is trying to care about this child. There is proof that so much more is known now about troubled children just by what other posters here have presented for you shows that. It is important for this mother to get the right advice in how to help her child that is such a challenge to her and the family.

When I joined PC, I wanted to know "why" I was so misunderstood. And I can't 'BELIEVE" what I am learning about myself. I was a good mother myself, I made sure my daughter never addressed things I lived through. About a month ago she looked at me "so self assured and strong and independant" and said, "Mom, you and I are "polar opposites". And she is right more than she will ever know because I gave her everything I didn't have, and the right to just be happy.

Open Eyes