Telling A Teacher About Kids Sexually Abusing Each Other Isn’t ‘Tattling”
In a terrible incident of kids sexually abusing each other in an Indiana school teachers failed to take action and accused students of “tattling.” I’ve been talking a lot lately about kids and teens and sexuality and pornography here at Mommyish, and we yet again have another news story that proves that as parents, we really need to become more (violently) proactive about this whole kids and porn thing. It’s one thing to have your kids take a wrong turn on the Google machine at home and end up seeing something they aren’t old enough to see. It’s an entirely other issue for your kid to be seeing these things at school, and then acting them out with their classmates. From the Huffington Post:
The parents of a central Indiana boy are suing Ball State University, alleging their son was subjected to “horrific sexual abuse” by fellow second-graders at a university-run school who they say acted out scenes from pornographic videos they downloaded on school computers.
The lawsuit says the boy was 8 years old when he was forced to engage numerous times in sex acts with other children at Burris Laboratory School in Muncie in late 2011. Four second-grade boys, including the alleged victim and another student described as the “ringleader,” are believed to have been involved in the sex abuse, the complaint alleges.
Eight-year-olds shouldn’t be viewing porn, ever. An eight-year-old doesn’t have the emotional maturity to view sexual acts performed by adults and fully understand what is going on. An eight-year-old seeing photographs or illustrations of the naked human body is one thing. But this isn’t a case of kids seeing naked people to better understand anatomy or their own bodies or under the context of sexual education. This is kids seeing porn at school. And then for some reason being left alone to act out what they have been exposed to.
The lawsuit alleges the students had “unfettered access” to the Internet at school and viewed pornographic videos on school computers and iPads. After viewing those video, the lawsuit states, “the students would then `act out’ the scenes” on each other.
All of the boys were students in the same second-grade class and were allowed by their teacher to go on long, unsupervised restroom breaks, the lawsuit states. Most of the alleged sex acts took place in bathrooms, but some occurred in the school’s library and in classrooms, the suit contends.
I don’t understand why the computers at the school weren’t monitored or why kids were able to access adult websites at school. And it gets a lot worse. from the Daily Mail:
According to the suit filed by attorneys on Friday, the Does received ‘a a horrifying phone call’ from the parent of another Burris student telling them that their son had been the victim of abuse in an incident on December 5.
But it claimed, because “‘teachers and administrators at Burris failed to inform the Does of the nature of the abuse,’ the parents had not discovered ‘the full extent of the sexual abuse’ for days.
When they did, they were shocked to find out that their son had been ‘forced to give and receive oral sex and engage in inappropriate touching with other second-grade boys’ in the schools facilities continually over a three-month period.
‘Ball State, Burris and (second-grade teacher Janis) Segedy allowed these students to freely use the restroom together unsupervised for lengthy periods of time in groups of three or four,’ reads the lawsuit.
It continues, claiming that when other students tried to warn the teach that some of the boys were ‘doing things to other boys’ private parts,’ the teacher told them off for ‘tattling’.
I can’t imagine what these poor parents and kids are going through. It makes me livid to think that this was able to go on at a school, and that when one of the kids tried to tell an adult he was reprimanded for “tattling.” There are so many things wrong here. The kids being able to access adult websites, the kids being allowed to be alone for extended periods of time, the adults who were made aware of the situation and did nothing. The news articles state that this went on at least 11 different times and over a three month period.
It’s not enough that parents are more proactive regarding what their kids are exposed to at home. We need to be vigilant about what they are exposed to when they are away from home, at friends or relatives houses, and sadly, at school. This all could have easily been avoided with the computers at school unable to access adult content and the kids being made to keep their alone time to a minimum.
I’d sue the school. I’d take my kids out of school and homeschool them. I’d be furious. No kid should have their childhood tainted by something like this. If only the adults made aware of the situation had acted sooner this all could have been avoided.
(Photo: Serggod/Shutterstock)
