There seems to be entirely too many people in this thread who are entirely too willing to dismiss completely abhorrent behavior as "kids being kids." It's very disquieting.

I think parents are looking for the best possible outcome. I believe that parents should have that right to raise their kids. Parents should be trusted to make family decisions until they have proven themselves to be lousy parents. Any attempt to be premptive in these types of issues will cause more harm than good.

you're OK with that? Why do we send any molesters to jail then?

when did I ever say i was ok with anything to do with molestation. I said for best possible outcomes families in most cases could best handle it themselves. When you involve social workers who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground and have an agenda going in you are flirting with disaster worse than the molestation.

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Really? Really? This sounds more like people who have been badly victimized blaming themselves for what happened. Even assuming that a little girl who was asleep/lying there did "want it" (ugh), how does that make the guy any less of a molester--how is he supposed to know the girl wanted it?

These posts are starting to make me feel like I took a left turn off the the Fighting Ignorance one onto some Incest Is Best site.

Just the opposite of what you are saying, the adult is always at fault. What it does say is that a big part of the damage associated with molestation is a result of repressed guilt and shame and blaming themselves. Often they feel guilt about getting someone else in trouble when they feel it is their fault. It is always the adult fault regardless of wether or not a kid was flirting with them.

The young Dugar boy souns like he has some serious issues while in a lot of cases all the parties involved grow up to be responsible well adjust adults with no interference from law enforcement. Trying to be too preemptive and bringin law enforcement or social workers too soon would end up compounding the damage done.

Yeah, I'm not seeing the difference between that and "kids will be kids." And, just because "nobody said it was right" doesn't mean that people are not dismissing this. 'Dismiss,' in this context, meaning that the people chalking this up to "teens doing stupid stuff" are not reacting to this with nearly enough revulsion.

I have no idea what the statistics on things like this happening are but I do know that it is common enough to be considered a challenge of raising kids that we all hope we will never face. Adding guilt and shame to a bad decision driven by hormones does nothing for either of the children involved. It does not have to be a dramatic life changing event. If it does happen a best outcome might be turned into a learning experience and a little blip in the childrens lives.

This reminds me of homophobia, kind of a contest to see who can show the most disgust. Everyone is afraid if they don't show major revulsion they will appear to approve of this behavior. Evidenced by the number of politicians and civic leaders who come out the strongest against it.

I really don't see why it would be a bad thing for someone to feel guilty and ashamed about molesting someone. Why should hormones be a get out of jail/guilt free card?

They should feel guilty if they are normal kids, if they don't feel guilty they may have deeper problems. They also need to learn to forgive themselves and move on. there is a process involved in this that starts with an apology. If an apology is not possible then simply resigning themselves to never repeat behavior like this again is all that should be neccessary to resolve them of guilt and allow them to live a normal life.

Believe it or not, hormones are a powerful drug that can influence behavior. Some kids aren't driven as much as others and some have better self control. But the bottom line is that if they learned their lesson they should feel good about forgiving themselves and moving on.