Why is it so important?
- 720,000 images of children being sexually abused are uploaded on the internet EVERY DAY.
- Boys and very young children are sexually exploited online. Both are more likely to face the most severe and extreme forms of abuse.
- We are witnessing an increase in the misuse of technology to groom children for sexual purposes, sextortion and self-generated child sexual images.
- The vast majority of online child sexual abuse material is made by those in the victim’s trust circle, such as coaches, teachers and caregivers. Identifying children in abuse material can be crucial to locating offenders.
A parent is a child’s best protector.
Unfortunately, self-doubt seems to have become part of modern parenting. If parents are to keep kids safe, they need faith in raising healthy, successful human beings. A parent’s intuition and insight spring from an instinctive vigilance over a beloved child—this is a powerful force in protecting children.
The only fatal error in raising children occurs when a parent stops caring about what happens to that child—then, the child is truly lost.
Trust your instinct
Sometimes, the signals of a person’s warning system are no more than vague feelings of disquiet, a sense that something is wrong, which may be ignored if others don’t share the same reaction. For example, a parent may hesitate to respond to requests if their kid can sleep at their house or go with them on a camping trip – and the hesitation you feel deep inside is internal conflict, an emotional signal that warns you of possible danger. But you ignore it as just a difficult decision to make. Do you decide to keep your child happy or trust your gut feeling?
Modern psychology often tells us fears and anxieties are mental problems. We have to dismiss or medicate them with alcohol or drugs – when they usually are extraordinarily effective warning systems. Instead learn how to read them. Most of the time, they are there for a good reason: to protect your offspring.
Strengthen your bond with your children so that predators cannot break it. You can decide, for example, how much time a child spends with a grandfather to safeguard the child. Parents often feel too intimidated to ask questions and make decisions to keep their kids safe.
The goal of a sexual predator is to separate your child from you. If a mom says,‘’ He would never do that!’’ about someone accused of sexual exploitation, the predator has possibly already managed to achieve a separation between her and the child. It doesn’t matter how incompetent or unfit you feel as a parent – you are better for your child than any sexual predator who stalks a child.
Teach kids safe behaviour
Don’t be ignorant and think someone else will nicely teach your kids sexual safety. Their first sexual education experience is fondling, sodomy, rape, or penetration with an object for many kids. Most victimized kids never report sexual abuse – they deal with it alone and in silence.
Resilience is that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. They find a way to rise from the ashes rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve. Resilient children get through trouble more successfully. You can teach your child a set of skills to help them be resilient and figure out solutions when facing challenges.
5 Skills To Teach Kids To Become Resilient:
Pro-active orientation
Pro-active orientation means you teach a child how to solve problems rather than give them the solutions while they sit and wait passively for rescue or help. Start when they are little by asking questions like “What would you do if someone asked you to take off your clothes?’’ As they grow older, they analyse and think about exploring more ways to handle difficult situations.
Self-regulation
Self-regulation is a youngster’s ability to deal with emotional reactions in a way that improves circumstances. Powerful feelings can be disruptive. If children have self-control, they can rein in impulsive reactions and delay gratification in their long-term best interest, consistent with their deepest values. Sexual predators use money, gifts and outings to groom children. When children make impulsive choices because of a lack of self-control, they can easily fall victim to such advances.
Self-regulation involves teaching your kids courtesy and social etiquette. Social etiquette includes teaching kids good manners, respect, greeting people, talking politely, table manners, and what is right and wrong. When kids can organise behaviour and decide how to act, they get lots of smiles from adults, which generally supports a good view of themselves.
Planned parenting
Planned parenting is organised guidance when a parent anticipates a child’s needs and has goals for their behaviour. For example: ‘’By age ten, I want you to learn to take out the garbage. ‘’ This is very different from the random parenting that occurs with a disorganised, upset parent who is far too stressed to focus outside himself. The best indicator of successful planned parenting is the absence of disciplinary problems. Organised parents help kids to be organised.
Attachments
Attachments to others occur at many levels. Resilient children grow up in a web of helpful and supportive connections. Strong connections to family and friends help kids develop social skills because they grow up in a setting where they get feedback from others. What the parent teaches at home is echoed by the teacher, the aunt and other role models. As kids improve their social skills, they get pleasant responses that the world offers to pleasant children, helping self-esteem grow.
They also learn how to differentiate between sincerity and dishonesty and manipulation. They can recognise when someone’s behaviour is out of line.
Academic achievement
Academic achievement is important in developing a child’s resilience because it is the only objective measure of a child’s success as a human being. If a youngster does well in school, they feel normal and accepted according to the one measure that all kids understand. A child with good grades feels intelligent and hopeful. When hard times come, a child who has learned many ways to use his abilities has a layer of protection. When faced with a sexual predator, the child can have faith in his ability to figure out what to do. Rather than avoiding the problem, the child can now confront the issue and exert as much control as possible.
Talk with children
A career molester knows how to pick up on the loneliness and despair of a child. The conversation is essential in raising healthy kids because when they don’t listen, they don’t speak or converse. They are prepared for challenging experiences.
Keep quiet and listen to your child. It is tough to listen to a child disclosing sexual abuse. Even though you are taken off guard by the disclosure, listen. Don’t respond with denial or disbelief. It is a miracle if your child discloses because most kids don’t.
Your child must always feel safe to tell you anything. Kids are afraid to talk for fear they will get into trouble. A parent has enormous power over a child – to discipline, punish, condemn, and disapprove.
Please don’t:
- Don’t call your child names.
- Don’t put your child down. Build your child up. Believe in your child.
- Don’t catastrophize everything. Stay calm.
- Don’t nitpick everything. Let it go.
- Don’t run on and on about something. Incessant talking doesn’t help. It cramps creativity.
- Don’t sob. Parents breaking down in tears is upsetting to children.
- Don’t blast off. Parents screaming, breaking things and cursing upset kids.
Please do:
Take stock of kids’ lives. Think like a criminal. Also, think carefully about your child and his maturity and developmental level.
- How good is your child’s judgement?
- How needy is your child? Is your child clingy, tearful or acting out? Sexual predators target dependent or needy children.
- What makes your child feel worthwhile? Your approval or the approval of others?
- How skilled is your child at dealing with emergencies? Can he put on a Band-Aid by himself? Answer the door or telephone safely. Can your child get himself home safely without help if the situation arises? How creative is your child when a problem arises and there is no obvious solution?
Sexual predators are always on the prowl. They are rarely spontaneous. They have secret lives and hidden agendas and are aware of the odds they can escape detection, like drug dealers and loan sharks they rarely attack openly. They often draw their victims into a web of illegal behaviour from which it is difficult to escape.
Become an objective view of your child’s life. There are no reliable signs of sex offender personality other than the usual indicators of criminality. Instead looking for repetitive behavioural patterns helps parents decide when to restrict a child.
Example: A grandfather who loves to bathe children or wants to be alone puts children in risky circumstances. Beware of adults or older teens who find excuses to physically touch children through spankings, massages, back rubs and wrestling.
Get to know the children who are your child’s friends.
Get vocal about how you would handle disclosure – sex crimes thrive on secrecy and denial. Your family and friends should know how you will handle indications of sexual victimization of your children. Your children need to understand how and why you would handle sexual and criminal activity.
Last but not least, Don’t recycle sex offenders. Have them prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Stand together on this as a family and a community.
8 Things to teach your kids in addition to personal sex education:
Talks about safety and protecting oneself against criminals should start young and continue through a child’s life. Initially, the talks will be simple and short – 10 minutes at most. How a child deals with issues of safety changes as he develops and matures.
Always Have an Escape Hatch.
Don’t ever get into a situation you cannot get out of – Don’t get trapped. The most obvious example is a locked room.
There are, however, other circumstances from which it might be difficult for a child to extricate himself.
- A sleepover where everyone else is asleep.
- The back of a school bus.
- A ride in a car, boat or motorbike.
- An elevator. Unfamiliar woods.
- In the church – alone with a pastor.
- The dressing room at a sports facility.
If you teach a child to always look for an escape hatch, it provides a child with some control. Teaching this rule allows a child to be proactive because he can look at any situation and decide whether it has an escape hatch and then avoid it if it hasn’t. Avoiding situations that can trap a child requires social skills because there may be pressure for a youngster to submit to an adult’s wishes.
- A child might need to make graceful excuses for the circumstances listed above, such as:
- I have to call my mother (from the sleepover) because she said she’d show up here if I didn’t.
- I like sitting in front of the bus to watch the driver work the bus controls.
- My parent said no to the trip.
- Motorcycles make me throw up.
- Oops, I guess that was the emergency button I pushed.
- If I went off into the woods, my mother would kill me.
Two Deep
No adult except a parent has reason to spend time alone with a child.
In all situations, the presence of two adults protects kids. If an adult wants to be alone with a child, it puts the child in a vulnerable position. This is not a guarantee for safety – as there have been many occasions where two adults have molested a child. An example is in Roman Catholic churches, where priests have molested children. (Watch the documentary: The Keepers). Use this rule as a general guideline.
Children can be overwhelmed when trying to sort out the complexities of adult-child relationships. A child knows where his feet are and where they are taking him. By focusing downward, he can anticipate where he will end up. If there are only two other large feet in the room with him, they don’t belong to a parent, so he needs to look for the exit.
No Secrets
Pressuring a youngster to keep a secret is unkind because kids cannot keep secrets for long. Secrets are a sign of emotional intimacy between two people. Predators intimidate kids into keeping secrets. This makes children feel they are participating in something terrible and starts a separation between them and their parents. It is kindness to instruct kids to avoid all secrets. When a teenager wants a younger child to keep something secret, it indicates risky behaviour.
Keep Your Hands To Yourself
Kids are taught they cannot touch other people’s stuff if they break it. Parents should extend the rule to the touching of bodies. Everyone keeps their hands to themselves. Sexual predators often groom children with touching to break down a child’s inhibitions slowly over time. Teach your kids, therefore, to avoid any situation where adults touch them. They should learn that only parents may feel them as part of caring for them and expressing family love.
Seductive Behaviour
Adults easily recognize seductive behaviour, but kids don’t. People make sexual advances towards children as well. The person who flatters, makes constant eye contact, and tries to get near you and wants to touch you frequently is often the person making a sexual overture. Teach your kids that such people are wolves in sheep’s clothing and should be avoided.
Legal and Illegal Behaviour.
Kids feel more confident if they are aware of the basic rules of the wider society. They need to know when they are old enough to give consent to have sex. They need to know no adult can force them into having sex. They need to know child pornography is against the law. No one may take photos of them. No one may show them photos of nude people or people having sex.
Article to read: Cyber paedophilia
Protect Other Kids
When kids don’t report the sexual advances, it recycles the predator, so he is now better prepared to approach the other kids. While kids struggle to report sexual abuse, they are far more willing to report others’ sexual abuse, maybe younger and weaker than them.
Internet Safety
The internet separates kids from adults, so there is little guidance or protection for kids online. Adults can teach kids safety on the internet by learning to be safe. This requires active learning of how the internet works.
Articles to read: Cyberbullying
Sexual Abuse gets stronger in secrecy. Talk to someone. It will help you to stop the abuse.
Quiz
If you are unsure if what you experience is sexual abuse, you can do a self-test to learn more:
Resources:
How to Protect Kids from Child Molesters Kindle Edition
by Lauren Ayers (Author), Ed Girtler (Preface)