I will lay this out and then follow with some questions and with what we are doing about it.
My wife and I have a daughter who is 2 years and 1 month old.
My wife and I have a family friend. I will call him Bob here.
Bob came into our lives 10 years ago through a mutual friend. They have been married for years. They moved across the country for her work a few years ago. We see them regularly during the holidays with our other core group of couple friends.
Recently Bob was working on his phd and has been doing research where we live and needed a place to stay for a couple of months while in town. We were happy to accommodate him in our guest room.
Bob and our daughter get along very well and she has missed him since he left a month or so ago. He probably gets along with her better than any other adult she knows (laughing, playing etc.).
A few things have happened recently that have been cause for alarm since Bob left town:
1. I made the mistake of lifting our daughter by her arms while playing and it partially dislocated her elbow (I felt awful and learned that one shouldn't do this until a child is 3). Before we took her to the emergency room where they put her elbow back in place she said she wanted Bob and insisted twice that "I didn't say anything!". Neither my wife or I have told her not to say anything before.
2. My wife showed our daughter a picture in a magazine of a toddler mixing something in a bowl with a handle of a wooden spoon (flesh colored stick) and asked what the girl was mixing (we bake bread etc.). Our daughter said the girl was mixing "a penis". My wife tried to clarify "peanuts?" Our daughter said, no "penis". It sounds different when she says "peanuts" for the record. We haven't taught or said the word penis to her before. My wife asked who says the word "penis?" a couple of times. Our daughter said, "Bob!"
3. My wife told me about incident #2 when I woke up. I asked our daughter a couple of non-leading questions in a very happy casual manner (where is a penis? what do you do with a penis?). The one she answered was, "who has a penis?" She said "Bob has a penis!"
This morning my wife called the local children's hospital as we wanted to have a professional talk with our daughter and see if any other information comes up and to see what they thought next steps should be. They said we have to call the police or CPS to have them see our daughter. My wife called the police and was referred to CPS who took the info above.
A few thoughts and questions:
a. Our daughter knows how to say a few hundred words and can speak in complete sentences these days. That said she is still just 2 and is beginning to be imaginative and to form language.
b. We have a woman who takes care of our daughter a few times a week at our home, so our daughter doesn't have a lot of other kids around who would teach her the word "penis." like at a daycare. That said, it could have been said by a relative.
c. I thought that in potential cases involving a family friend we would be handled by the police who may refer us to a specialist at a children's hospital who could do an interview and not by CPS. Any insight here?
d. How would we go about finding a child psychologist who could both talk with our daughter and us about this. We will wait to see what CPS comes back with first in relation to being referred to a professional, but would like to have a professional to discuss this with. Is there a good website or local department we should call? We are in Michigan in the US.
e. We haven't asked our daughter more than a few questions because we soon read we should wait for a professional in case we suggest or exhaust her ability to talk about any potential incidents.
f. We have not noticed any major changes in behavior or fear of being touched etc. There was a time where our daughter would move a lot during a diaper change, but we can't place that time in relation to Bob being in town.
g. Bob and his wife don't have children and don't plan on having them (mostly Bob doesn't seem to want them).
h. When Bob was over he wouldn't watch our daughter for longer than maybe 30 minutes at most while one of us did a quick errand, but was definitely alone with our daughter a number of times. That said Bob didn't want to take care of our daughter for a day when our child care called in sick and we both had to travel out of town for work. We ended up taking our daughter to a friends child care.
i. We have not contacted Bob in relation to this situation and do not plan on doing so until we speak with a professional(s), but we do have plans to see he and his wife over the holidays in a couple of weeks. I am unsure of how to handle this. While I am primarily concerned for our daughter, I also recognize this could be terrible for Bob and our relationship given this could all be innocent.
What should we do or consider?