Stop Child Sexual Abuse Now! What you need to know. September 27, 2007
Posted by Mrs Flipphead in Child Safety, GPS for sex offenders, Things that **** me off!, child molester, family, kids, sex offender, sexual predator laws, stalker, victims.trackback
In his book, The Gift of Fear (Dell Publishing, 1997, pg. 15), Gavin de Becker says, “Sometimes a violent act is so frightening that we call the perpetrator a monster, but as you’ll see, it is by finding his humanness–his similarity to you and me–that such an act can be predicted.”
This is the chink in our armor that molesters use to get at our children–his similarity to you and me. Most of the time, the molester is kind, benevolent, fun and seems to understand the child better than anyone else the child has encountered. He is very, very good at it. There’s even a word for it in my field. It’s called grooming.
Grooming takes place when the molester goes to great lengths to gain trust and respect, not only of the child, but the adults in the child’s life. They will tend to seek out children who seem vulnerable and become the child’s “savior”, buying them gifts, taking them (and sometimes their family) places they would not be able to afford on their own. They may treat the child as a peer, allowing the child to do things their parents would not (i.e. drink alcohol, view porn). Making the child a co-conspirator, getting them comfortable with the idea of keeping ”secrets” from their parents. They become the person the child can count on. Often (but not always) they are the most stable adult figure in the child’s life. They set the child up to feel as though they willingly brought the abuse upon themselves. Their favorite prospects are children who have been molested before. Sad but true.
They groom the parents too. They lend an ear, loan money, do favors, offer free babysitting, etc. They build themselves up to be a saint in the parents’ eyes. The easier to discredit the child, should the child tell about the abuse.
Molesters will target children that they see as particularly vulnerable. They don’t generally choose children who have numerous supportive adults in their lives, but if they have easy access or alone time with the child, the background of the child doesn’t matter. Which is why molesters tend to seek out occupations that afford them easy access to children. It is also why most children are molested by people they already know and trust. People who are considered above reproach by their parents.
If you are a parent, you should be wary of any adult wanting to spend unsupervised time with your child. Alarm bells should go off in your head if your child is being showered with lots of gifts by someone (I don’t mean grandparents–although grandparents can be molesters too).
Trust your instincts. If something feels wrong to you about the situation, don’t shrug it off. Don’t assume because you know the person and he or she “couldn’t possibly ever do something like that”, that your feelings are unwarranted. Molesters don’t live in a vacuum. They all know people. They are all someone’s child, grandchild, co-worker, neighbor. They live among us, shop among us, work among us.
Besides being wary of people who seem to have an unexplained interest in spending time with your child and signs that the person is “too good to be true”. The one very important thing that you can teach your child is that they have the right to say “NO”, where their body is concerned.
I cringe every time I see or hear a parent force a child to “give aunt Zelda a hug” or “go on, give uncle Bert a kiss”. This sends a clear message to your child. Their body is not theirs and they don’t have the right to refuse unwanted affection from adults.
This is what I tell people, even grandparents, if my child doesn’t want to give them affection. I tell them that we want our kids to feel comfortable telling people “no” when it comes to their bodies and affection. Most adults don’t need more explanation than that. If they do, tell it like it is. Say that you don’t want to train your child that they have to submit to any adult who wants affection from them, so that if they encounter an adult who has bad intentions, they are better prepared to protect themselves. If “aunt Zelda” or “uncle Bert” truly love and care about your children, they will understand and want this for them too.
Also, know what your children are up to. Know who their friends are and who they talk to, especially on-line. Go visit Internet Safety for Our Children’s Sake if you have any doubts about the dangers lurking on-line. Don’t allow your child to have unrestricted access to the computer in a secluded location. Keep your internet access limited to the computers in the public areas of your house.
Jacer, at the link above, has some interesting and scary information on a site similar to YouTube, that allows people to stream live video from their webcams. This could translate into your child, alone in their room, chatting with a predator (who’s pretending to be 13, but he’s really 43), while the predator views them live through their computer. Do I have your attention? Good! Sends chills up my spine just typing it.
Being involved in your child’s life and teaching them the signs of someone who’s “overinvolved”, teaching them they have the right to say no if something is making them uncomfortable and making yourself approachable if something is bothering your child are some of the best things you can do to prevent your child from being targeted as an “easy mark” by a predator.
There is a whole world of information out there about what you can do to help prevent your child from becoming a victim. Forewarned is forearmed….
On that note. I shall post and head off to sleep.
Flip, I knew you’d do a post on this knowing how strongly you feel from previous posts w/ your personal experience. I think every single paragraph hits the nail on the head here. Every point that you touched on is crucial. The line that gave me chills was, “They build themselves up to be a saint in the parents’ eyes. The easier to discredit the child, should the child tell about the abuse.” They are like snakes in waiting. Sick. So cunning and crafty – look at what we are up against!
If you asked a kid what a molester looks like, they’d probably tell you “They look like a monster” or “They are ugly, and creepy looking” but the sad truth is, they look like everyday normal folks. This is something that I have told my kids.
I think what you wrote is golden and if everyone would have this conversation with their kids (instead of thinking “that’s something that happens to other people- because maybe they don’t let “outsiders” around their kids? Well, I have news, sometimes a FAMILY MEMEBER can abuse your kid!!! But, like I was saying, if everyone had this conversation with their kids, we could really put a HUGE dent in this problem.
I wish everyone could read what you wrote here.
“give aunt Zelda a hug” …
I never thought of that – but so so true.
Bella-Thanks! I’m glad that it was a worthwhile post. I did it so late yesterday, that I was worried that I would wake up this morning and find it didn’t make sense. \
You are absolutely right about molesters coming from your own family. I am astounded at the number of people that I meet that were molested by an uncle, older cousin, brother, parent, step-parent. In fact, some molesters target single moms with children who fit their preferred “type” of child. Then when the child outgrows the molesters preference, he divorces the mom (or just plain leaves, having never married her) to find the next victim.
You are dead on about what kids think “bad people” look like. My boss was telling me about how when one of her kids was little, she was watching Dynasty and her son got out of bed. He saw Joan Collins character Alexis and didn’t understand what was going on with her character. When my boss explained that she was the “bad guy”, he said, “She can’t be bad, she’s too pretty.”
Which, I imagine, is why Ted Bundy was able to murder so many young women. He didn’t look creepy or ugly.
Dawn- I know. I catch myself doing it sometimes and then I have to edit myself, “nevermind, that’s o.k. if you don’t feel like giving aunt Zelda a hug, it’s up to you.” It’s so easy to do. Our parents did it to us. Out of politeness. It was rude not to let smelly old aunt Zelda hug all over us and pinch our cheeks. We have been socialized to do the same thing to our kids. But the reality is that adults who love and care about what happens to our kids will understand when we simply explain why we don’t force it. And let’s face it, who wants forced affection from a child anyway? What they really want is the child to love them and want to hug them without being forced. A lot of times, they are the ones saying. “No, really. That’s o.k. don’t make them hug me, if they don’t want to.” But I see parents force their kids to do it anyway, which just makes the kid and “aunt Zelda” uncomfortable. It’s better for the parent to simply say something like, “Don’t feel bad, he’s that way with everybody” or “he’s just standoffish today.”
The point about Aunt Zelda really hits home. I’m constantly pointing out to my kids that their bodies are their own, but I still force the grandparent kiss/hug issue. I hope it’s not too late to backtrack! Thanks for the post — great info.
What a fantastic post Mrs F! I love your hard hitting no nonsense writing which is of great educational value. People refuse to believe that members of their own family could be so twisted – or are happy that little Jodie is playing happily on the computer safe indoors…if you don’t use a computer yourself you just aren’t aware of it’s potential to cause harm. You’re doing a great job!
Two Knives-It’s never too late to teach their kids about protective behaviors. Anything we can do to protect our kids from people who have deluded themselves into believing what they are doing is o.k. because they “love” the child is (hopefully) one more attempt foiled.
WalksFarWoman-Thanks for the kind words. I am constantly amazed at the naivete of many parents. I deal with a lot of parents in my line of work and it frightens me how many parents are out there who simply don’t even consider the possibility that it could happen to their kids.
I’m sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I have been busy trying to find a second job and dealing with a sick baby boy.
Thanks for commenting!
Mark Samuel, Nurse Sex Offender Convicted
On Sept 8,2005 RN:Mark Samuel was sentenced to five years in Jail with all but two years suspended,having been convicted in January 2004 of unlawful sexual contact with a 6 year-old girl . Mark Samuel counseled the girls mother. when the counseling ended , the three became friends attending family fuctions together. The violations occurred during sleepovers at the Nurses residence during the summer of 2003. Mark Samuel has been released from prison and is now at risk to the community of North Bay Ontario Mark Samuel emyployed 2007 for Assertive community treatment Team North Bay, ON
Northeast Mental Health Center
P.O. Box 3010 4700
Highway 11 N
North Bay, ON,CA
Nance-Thanks for the information. Hopefully the people who need to see it will see this and future tragedies will be prevented.