Secret shame: Therapy helps child deal with 'the bad touches'

Lexi gets the comfy red seat, the one that looks like an overstuffed lounge chair only in miniature.

Dressed in a Hanna Montana T-shirt, jeans and sequin-speckled black shoes, she rests her elbows on the baby bear-size table. Stuffed Mickey and Minnie mouses sit to one side. Social worker Angela Shields takes her place on a wee chair across from Lexi and sets down a bucket filled with colored markers, pencils and crayons.

This is the fifth time Lexi has met with Shields. It also will be the hardest. It will take all the courage a 5-year-old can muster to tell what happened to her in January at a neighbor boy's house. Her mother and Shields agreed to allow a reporter to sit in on the session, provided their names not be used.

Before Shields gets to that, she wants to know how many time-outs Lexi has had in the past week. The little girl has been acting up lately.

"Zero time-outs," the girl says.

"That's like two high fives," Shields says, putting up both hands for Lexi to slap. "Awesome!"

Shields then explains it's time for Lexi to make a book to get all of the bad thoughts and feelings out of her mind, so she can feel better.

"I'm scared right now," Lexi says.

"That is so OK right now," Shields assures her.

Shields takes out a blank sheet of paper and asks the little girl what the 13-year-old boy did to her.

"He put his private part into my two private parts," Lexi says.

Shields writes down the story as it unfolds. It happened in the boy's bedroom. He had Lexi and his 3-year-old sister race downstairs to see who was the fastest. "Then he made me get into his room."

"How?" Shields asks.

"I forgot since it was so long ago," the girl says. Once in the bedroom, "I think he made me pull down my pants."

As Lexi talks, Shields continues to offer encouragement and support, telling her she hoped to get all those scary thoughts out of her head and onto the paper.

"I just asked him to stop and he wouldn't where he was doing the bad touches," Lexi says. When he did stop, he gave Lexi a dollar bill. "At least I told the right people."

"Yes, you did," Shields said. "Superstar!"

After another high-five, it's time to draw.