Trying to listen to instinct and trying to teach it

I woke up an hour before my alarm went off today and my first thought was about the person who offered to get my son a cup of water when he complained he was thirsty, and then brought him hot water instead of cold or even room temp. And when he spat it out and started screaming and crying, she laughed and laughed. The DCP provider in charge yelled at her for doing that, but she thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Obviously his mouth wasn’t burned, or he would have said something that day. As it was, I didn’t hear this story until about a half of a year after my son left this home daycare. Apparently sometimes “friends” would come over and help the DCP with the kids.

This was an adult. Who took some sort of pleasure in torturing a young disabled boy. What is wrong with people?

And what is wrong with me that I wasn’t able to prevent this? I screened the DCP, I called the references. I spoke to parents as they picked their children up. I checked for a current license. All in place. I would ask my son about his day, and get the same answers each day; “How was your day?” “Fine” “What did you do?” “I don’t know”.

If I had known about this at the time I would have gone over there and kicked someone’s ass. So maybe it was better I wasn’t told.

I idolize Gavin DeBecker and use his book, “Protecting the Gift” as a sort of bible on how to teach my son to be safe from creepy, evil, rotten people. But part of what a child needs to learn early is to say they will tell, and then to tell. That day. And since that event with the water, my son HAS told me of people treating him badly. Usually the same day. I accept the news calmly and thank him for telling me. I worry though that this part may always be difficult for him. When he told me about the water thing, the next words immediately out of his mouth were, “Don’t tell DCP! They’ll be mad at me!” Which led to a long, gentle discussion about how he doesn’t need to worry about people getting angry with him for telling us things if they’re true. That hubby and I will protect him no matter what.

Still, for some reason, this water thing haunts me. What kind of sicko takes pleasure in tormenting a 4-year-old boy who doesn’t understand why he’d be mistreated? And why would a sicko like that be in the same building as my child while he is being cared for? This was a friend of the DCP, which makes me wonder about the DCP too.

Thank goodness that place is far behind us. But obviously I am still upset about the things that my son alleges happened there. And if these things did happen, they are still floating around in my son’s mind, in some sort of ether world from which they eventually emerge and get spoken by my son. Where was this memory 5 months ago? Was he so traumatized that the memory went away until he felt safe enough to express his pain?I want a book that teaches me how to keep my special needs child safe from bad people. I haven’t found one yet.

Monster’s Aspie friend wants him to spend the night in the next couple of weeks. And I worry about the father, that maybe he’s a secret child molester and how will I know? What can I do? Just say no sleepover? At some point I need to let my child out into the world, and be able to trust that he knows how to protect himself. I need to be able to know that he will tell us immediately if something happens.
And maybe this is why this memory surfaced for me now- as a reminder that my son may not be quite ready to be alone with other adults in a home situation. And I don’t know how to know, because I can tell my son he needs to tell us and he will tell us, yes, I will. He told us that before we placed him in that home daycare.

He was better when his aide at school started mistreating him. He would tell us. I would call the director and tell her my son says this happened, and I know it may not be true, but could you please speak with this person and find out what happened?And he told us about the marks in his armpits the day it happened. He understands this stuff is serious and that hubby and I are going to always do what we can to protect him.
But maybe I need to wait on this sleepover. Maybe this is all my half-conscious brain was telling me.