Dear Geraldine,

Forgiving yourself for what happened when you were babysitting is difficult but important.  Might help if you can understand that you were doing the best you could do with what was available to you at the time.  In my opinion, the child was too young to remember the incident, and it sounds to me that you stopped yourself before any real damage was done.  “What type of kid does that to another?” Maybe the type of kid who had her curiosity about life ignored or shamed and had to satisfy that curiosity on her own in the only way she could think of?