Tough Life Experience

Oh, my dear sweet Lily!  

This post is definitely one for the books.  I just have to smile whenever I think of this embarrassing/sweet experience that Lily shared with me because we all learned so much from it.

Lily came home from activity days one night clearly shaken.  She would not talk to me about it until after I put all of the kids to bed because she was so embarrassed and didn't want them to know.  As you can imagine, every possible worst case scenario played out in my mind.  What in the world happened to her that would cause her to act the way she was acting?

Once I got all of the kids settled and into bed, Lily came into my room and just cried her eyes out.  I just hugged her tight and asked what happened.  Once she was able to calm herself down a bit she told me her story.

At the end of her activity while she and her friends were hanging out and chatting -  a boy her age who is high functioning but has special needs came up to her and started playing with her and touching her on her shoulder.  Because Lily is seriously such a kind girl - she tried hard to be nice to him and just stood there while he tried to get her attention.  Before Lily even knew what was happening, this boy planted a kiss right on her lips.  She was absolutely mortified!!  She did not know what to do.  Apparently, a couple of her leaders saw what happened and just joked it off.  (which kind of makes me sad that they didn't do more to comfort her - but I'm sure they didn't realize how much it affected her).  

The part that was so endearing to me was that Lily kept saying over and over again, "I am just 10 years-old . . ."  I had to keep reassuring her that it didn't count as her first kiss and that it was totally innocent by a boy that clearly didn't understand social manners.  We said a prayer together and I really do think that eased her mind a bit.  It took a few days for her to finally come to peace with the situation.

I happened to be talking to my dad about it when I was on the phone with him a few days later and he suggested that I talk to the boys mother.  I had actually gone back and forth on whether or not to say something because I didn't want to make it a big deal knowing that he has special needs- but at the same time I really did feel that Lily's personal space was violated.  It really was wrong of him to do that.  I ended up calling his mom and she was super sweet.  I explained the situation to her and she told me that he had actually kissed a boy on the lips at his school.  (Clearly this was an issue that they knew about and were trying to correct.)

Though I wish this didn't happen to Lily - it was sweet to watch her try and deal with it.  It allowed us to talk to her more seriously about safe guarding herself if someone ever tried to take advantage of her.  I am so grateful also that she talked to us about it when at first she didn't want to tell anyone what happened.  I know without a doubt that Heavenly Father comforted her when she was so mortified.  She didn't even want to go to school the next day.  But as she was prayerful and as she thought more about it - she decided that she needed to rise above it and let it go.  I am so proud of her!