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What To Do If They Become Victims
We would all like to believe that our world is a safe place for our children, but it is not. Most parents are terrified of letting their children out of their sites. But how do we teach our children to be aware of danger signs and to take charge of their own bodies? How do we talk to our children about “good” and “bad” touches when we could never imagine our relatives or friends doing something bad to our children? This site will provide you with suggestions and techniques for talking about these things to your children. You will also find a list of resources that are great for opening the door to discussion and speculation with your child.
We all agree that it is important to protect our children from harm. One of the most important tools necessary for protecting our children is discussion. If we want children to be able to protect themselves we must talk to them and help them learn how to tell when something is wrong and what to do about it. Sexual abuse and child abductions are extremely high in this country. The missing children banner on my homepage gives you a small idea of the number of children abducted daily. Something must be done. As parents we have the responsibility of teaching our children about personal safety. Not the schools, not the police, not the neighborhood children. Us. If we cannot talk to our children about these issues how can we expect them to talk to us if something happens? How can we expect them to know what to look for and be aware of? Our children’s lives are too valuable to leave it up to the other person to take care of. Schools are not required to teach these things. Children need to hear it from their parents. It could be a matter of life or death for your child.
It may be helpful to view my Myths and Realities of Child Sexual Abuse Page. This page discusses some of the misunderstandings that both adults and children have regarding offender’s and victims of child sexual abuse.
Most of the resources on this page and the adjoining pages come from a wonderful video that I recommend you rent, borrow or buy and view with your children. It is called, “How to Raise a Street Smart Child” and it is based on a book by Grace Hechinger. You can order this video right from my Personal Safety Resources Page under videos.
If you would like to read a demonstration of how I talk to children about sexual abuse, click here. This is just an example and can be adapted to your own style of teaching.
It is very important that you teach your children about strangers. Most children do not know what a stranger is. If you ask them to describe a stranger they will probably say that it is a man with a long coat, dark, scary eyes and evil looking, or something very similar. Your child must know that a stranger is anyone that they do not know, whether a man or a woman, pretty or ugly, nice or mean, young or old, etc. Even adults are often fooled by good looking strangers.
There are several things that you can do to make sure that your child is less of a temptation for strangers. Again, these suggestions come from the video, “How to Raise a Street Smart Child”. To view these suggestions visit my Ways to Make your Child Less of a Target page and my Tips To Prevent Abductions page.
Looking for some fun and age-appropriate ways to talk to your children about personal safety. Visit my Tools To Teach Personal Safety page or my Personal Safety Resources page. Providers and teachers, if you are going to be teaching these topics to children in your care, please make sure that you have every parents approval first. You may want to have a small open house to discuss this with parents first and find out how much they feel comfortable with you saying to their children.
Child abuse can have a very traumatic effect on a child that lasts throughout their lives. How you, as their parents, deal with the abuse can determine how traumatic and how much of an effect this crisis can cause. You are the most important people in the child’s life. You are the ones that the children place most of their trust in. Children need to know that you will always be there to protect them and to help them through this. Usually, when a child has been sexually abused, their sense of trust can be affected even more. Although every child and every situation is different, and there is no way you can tell how each child will deal with this crisis, there are general rules that you, as a parent, can follow to help out. Visit my How To Help a Child Through page for these suggestions.
Do you know what to do if your child is ever missing and you suspect that they have been abducted? Please go to my What to Do if Your Child is Missing page.
Do your children use the Internet? Do you have young teens or teens that frequently chat with friends on the internet? If so, then you will want to view my Internet Personal Safety page which contains lots of tips and advice from the Oprah show.
I hope that the information on these pages have been helpful to you. If you have any feedback, suggestions or anything that you feel should be added to these pages, please feel free to email me by clicking on the email button below. Children rely on adults to protect them and to provide them with a safe environment. I have made it my mission to educate as many people on this as I can. Please tell others about this site and pass the word around. I, myself, was a victim of child sexual abuse, and I know how important it is for the adults in our life to be trustworthy. Are you a trustworthy adult? Thank you, on behalf of the children, if you are!
