My relative's nine year old daughter concerns me.

We had a social gathering recently where i spent time around this young girl.

The relative (girl's Mom) keeps hooking up with jerks and has messed up kids.
(I think they all have ADD PLUS other multiple problems.)

The nine year old girl brags to us: "I have two boyfriends. One is the old boyfriend and one is the new boyfriend."

I just about frikkin fell over.

Sheesh, I didn't kiss a boy until i was in Grade 9 (at a school dance), and Didn't "date" until I was 16.

Her mother (my messed up relative) has addiction and employment problems and moves about every 6 months.

re: ADD
The Mom's been a coke user too, in the past, so she can't get meds, even if she were diagnosed, really. Or she uses booze while on antidepressants and then wants to know why they dont' work. Duh.)

It's not Adult ADD [alone] b/c she's got all these OTHER problems.

She is 40 yo and just can't SEEM TO see that she creates incredible stress for the child's life by being unstable like this. I think she may ADD [oh, and WAY WAY more]. Sorta "histrionic" issues, etc. She thinks she's the greatest Mom on the Planet. *rolls eyes* *barf*

Last time the kid visited [last year] and we saw the child [when she was 8yo], the child tried to spell her elderly female relative's name. (It is an easy common English first name of 5 letters.) She kept spelling it wrong. Over and over. Sad to watch. A kindergartener should have been able to spell it.

I almost wanted to cry.


Now this Boy Crazy stuff:
It's disturbing to see a child who seems prematurely sexually precocious with regard to the opposite sex: but I have to say that her Mother is the same way.

When you are 8 or 9, don't you think boys have cooties or something? LOL
I don't recall wanting to kiss them at that age.

What concerns me about her behaviour and "values about boyfriends" at age 9, is making me feel fearful for her future.

Ofcourse, No one asks to be assaulted, but i worry she could get herself into bad situations with bullying older boys where she is sexually taken advantage of. (e.g. alcohol)

Her mother already left her with a 15 year old male babysitter who molested her when she was 4 or 5 years old. (Half of all child molesters are under 18, BTW.)

This sort of overmature sexual behaviour can be the beginning of the "acting out" that abused kids can do when they haven't "processed" (digested) their early trauma.

They are sometimes trying to "tell" what happened to them, etc.

Her Mom is way to messed up to do anything like organizing specialized counselling for her.

I'm really scared for her because: (a) Kids who are assaulted as children have 4x the chance of being revictimized as teens. Also, offenders seek out the (b) Kids of poor single Moms and (c) the kids of disabled or (d) the kids of Substance dependent parents (like her mom).

With her mom being such a trainwreck, predators (including similar aged boys) may find her easy to take advantage of. (Being "wounded prey".)

Given how we pick up our parents 'values', I'd imagine she picked up that idea that "being pretty" and "having a boyfriend" are important and that "male opinions matter in terms of approval [for a female to be worth something]" from her Mother.

I also don't want her to grow up thinking that her only asset is her looks or attractiveness to men.

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re: interventions
Generally child authorities only "do something" if a kid is being HIT or ATTACKED by their parent, somehow. (e.g. physical evidence)

This creeps me out, but given my general inability to do anything about this scenario, I need to be able to "let go" somehow.

QG..she's lucky she has you to be on alert! have you spoken to other family about it?
if you have.. sorry, I missed that bit :-(

Hi QueensU girl

As the dad of a 10 year old I'm around girls of that age a bit. My daughter goes to a school in an area where the parents would be regarded as upper middle class and the limited description you have given would fit with about a quarter of my daughters classmates. My partner overheard some wondering how a condom stayed on during sex and another boasts of a 13 year old boyfriend.

Many of the kids have absent dads (through work not separation) and research quoted in New Scientist indicated that daughters in families without a dominant male reach sexual maturity earlier.

Amongst the playground mums at my kids school I would suspect that the majority place great value on looking pretty and consider that male opinion matters. Displaying the size of their mans wallet is their main route to status and peer respect.....how else are they going to keep a guy with enough disposable income to keep them going to the country club in their Range Rover every day? The emotional results of such an insecure belief system is often apparent in subtle ways.

Yes your relative may be messing up her kids, but its only obvious because of her non-conformist lifestyle, there are a whole bunch of people conforming absolutely to the norms of our western culture who are messing up their kids just as much if not more.



kilt

Yeah it was like 13 when I was in that mode and I am going to be 27 next week so it is kind of funny how it's changed within that period of time

It's going to be harder because it's a relative. Somehow the genetic link makes us care all the more. I don't know if I can offer any suggestions on helping you "let go" but have you concidered calling CPS (or whatever Canada's version of that is)? It might be for the best to get her away from that situation completly.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I just think of myself as a 9 y.o. Gee, I was into Holly Hobbie, Girl Guides, Trampoline and the Rubiks' Cube