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Preventing Sexual Abuse:

It is Time to Start Talking

By Tina Payne Bryson, PhD - TinaBryson.com

At a birthday party, a group of moms were talking about a recent news story where a little girl had been abducted from her home, sexually assaulted, and murdered by a registered sex offender. As we began to talk, it was apparent that we all struggle with if, when, and how to talk to our kids about sexual abuse, even when we’re educated about it. Having worked as a Victims’ Advocate for sexually abused kids, domestic violence victims, and sexual assault victims, and then doing a dissertation on women with a history of sexual abuse has taught me a lot. But it was watching both victims and perpetrators being interviewed about the abuse that forever seared in my mind the importance of talking to our children in order to arm them against sexual abuse. Because it is such a difficult thing to think about, and because we are typically not very educated about sexual abuse, we feel unsure of how to handle talking to our kids about this topic.

But we really need to. Silence puts them at risk. Most studies find that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men have been victims of child sexual abuse. Here are more facts that are good to know: perpetrators are typically more than 10 years older than the victim; the age for abuse is usually around age 9 for both boys and girls. Boys are more likely to be abused by strangers or acquaintances, and girls are more likely to be abused by family members; half of all perpetrators all authority figures in the children’s’ lives. More than 1/3 of victims never told about the abuse during childhood (Finkelhor, 1990). So, though I can’t go into detail in this article, I would like to quickly do two things: 1--I will give you some information on sexual abuse and, 2-- I will give you some suggestions about proactively preventing sexual abuse. It is our job to empower our kids against sexual abuse.

Factors Associated with Child Sexual Abuse:

Perpetrators: Though we all fear a stranger grabbing our kids and molesting them, this is really rare. 80% of offenders are known to the child (a family member, authority figure, or acquaintance). While it is alarming that there are 64 registered sex offenders within a 2 mile radius of our preschool in South Pasadena, (see http://meganslaw.ca.gov/) your child is most likely to be abused by someone he or she knows. Most perpetrators are smart, likeable, and good with children; they find ways to gain access to children by working in or volunteering in roles that will allow them to be around children. Single moms with daughters are particularly at risk because perpetrators seek out relationships with these mothers to gain access to their daughters.
Context of Sexual Abuse: Because most perpetrators are known by the victim, abuse occurs in the context of the victim trusting the perpetrator, where the perpetrator entices the child (“you are special” or providing special treats or privileges). The offender then persuades the child to keep the secret (the victim is entrapped in the desire to please the perpetrator whom the victim trusts or the perpetrator may threaten the child that if she tells she will get in trouble or that they will never see their mom again, etc.)
Preconditions for Sexual Abuse to Occur: For a perpetrator to abuse, four preconditions must be met a) motivation to abuse--
1. a perpetrator must be sexually interested in children (this can happen for a number of reasons),
2. overcoming internal obstacles (fear of getting caught, etc.),
3. overcoming external obstacles—parental supervision must be absent, the right location must be found
4. overcoming the resistance of the child victim—the perpetrator must overcome the child’s resistance to abuse.

** We can do nothing about the first two preconditions. The third one we can control to a certain degree; we can be careful about who we leave our children with, but even when we are zealous about this, we cannot be with our children every minute. The fact is that most perpetrators are people “you would never suspect.”, but we should also be very tuned in to our own instincts, and we must listen to our children if they say they feel uncomfortable with someone. SO, we need to really work on the fourth precondition and arm our kids in a way that perpetrators cannot overcome our child’s resistance. Children who receive emotional and physical closeness to their caregivers and children who are informed about the privacy of their own body and are empowered to say NO! are the least vulnerable.

Now What?

Protecting your children by making them aware is really a challenge because we want to inform them without scaring them and we need to be aware that so many of the messages we give them are contradictory. For instance, when someone else is taking care of them we often tell our children to obey the person in charge. We may teach them not to say “no” when an authority figure tells them to do something, but obviously we also want to empower them to disobey and say no if what the adult is telling them to do is wrong. We want to tell them not to talk to strangers, but then we make them say hello to strangers all the time, AND most perpetrators are not strangers to our kids. These types of conflicts leave us confused about what to tell our kids.

Here are some suggestions to begin to help you think about how you would like to talk to your preschooler. As they get older, other types of prevention and discussion may be necessary.

Give children permission to own their own bodies and to respect the privacy of other people’s bodies. (Don’t force them to give hugs. In natural settings you can bring this up like when my boys were in the tub I told them that it was ok to touch their own bodies, but that no one else should touch anyone else’s private parts unless it is the doctor and mom or dad is there too. Before the doctor examines them ask them if it is ok for the doctor to touch them and give the reason.) Give them the message that touching should NEVER be coercive or forced and that they should say “NO” and then tell if anyone ever tries to touch their private parts.
Focus on personal safety by talking about how to keep our bodies safe. If you approach the topic by talking about how we keep our bodies safe (using seatbelts, wearing sunscreen, wearing bike helmets), teaching “touching safety” can follow naturally. Matter-of-factly tell your child that no one should touch their private parts (which can be described to them as the places that their bathing suit covers), except to keep them clean or healthy and only when mom or dad is with them. Then you can play a “what if” game that they will really love: “what if you wanted to ride your bike but you couldn’t find your helmet?”, “what if the babysitter tried to touch your private parts?”, “what if you hurt your private parts—could the doctor touch you?” Etc. Then brainstorm problem-solving with them by asking “Then what would you do? What is something you could say?” They will really enjoy asking you some “what if” scenarios too.
Make it really explicit that they can always tell you anything. You want to set the stage for them to feel the freedom to come to you. Most of us think our kids feel that, but it is important to tell them that outright. Often perpetrators can continue to abuse because the child feels guilty about accepting some sort of bribe and feels they are to blame and that they will get in trouble. Perpetrators play up this fear. If we consistently tell our kids that we love them even when they make bad choices they will feel more freedom to come to us. “I would love you even if you did the worst thing in the world!” They love to come up with a list: “Would you love me if I . . . (it can be hilarious to hear the things that are the worst things they can think of, like “lost your keys!”
Some experts suggest that you discourage secrets by distinguish between secrets and surprises. Surprises are things that we are waiting to tell at the right time (like what we got Daddy for Christmas), and that make people happy. This way if they are told by someone to keep a secret, your child knows that secrets are bad and to tell you. Children need to be explicitly told that if anyone tells them to keep a secret from their parents, that they should tell their parents immediately. A friend of ours simply, but brilliantly told his son “You don’t keep secrets from your parents! You just don’t.”
You might also be aware that children have wonderful instincts and if your child is uncomfortable with someone or a situation, LISTEN and BELIEVE THEM. Teach your child that if they feel uncomfortable with someone that they should tell you.
One way you can approach the topic is to talk about “body science” and teach your kids the correct names for body parts and how their bodies work. Perpetrators look for kids who do not have specific vocabulary about their bodies because they know it is less likely that open talk about sexuality is happening at home. This may require you to spend some time becoming comfortable in discussing sexuality. If you are tense and awkward your child will pick up on it.
One conversation will not do it. You will need to talk to them about it many times. We are often in the situation to bring this up naturally like using the toilet, bathing them, taking them to the doctor, etc. There are many books available to help you talk to your child about this if you want some additional help. A good suggestion is: Talking to Your Kids About Sex: How to Have a Lifetime of Age-Appropriate Conversations with Your Children About Healthy Sexuality by MARK LAASER. A couple of good websites which talk about what to do if you suspect abuse or signs to watch for etc. are:

Some of this information was obtained from the sources: darkness2light.org, cfchildren.org, prevent-abuse-now.org, theparentreport.com

This site was last updated 08/04/07