Protecting Your Children from Sexual Child Abuse

This photo was taken by Wade Harris downloaded form Flickr Creative Commons
Each pinwheel represents a child abused in Tulsa, OK. Many communities are placing pinwheels to represent each child abused in their communities as a reminder of it's horrible reach, and to remind us to do what we can to prevent child abuse.

Although this topic is heavy, a newspaper article put it on my mind today. So here I write:

Just because your kids are in places that you think they are safe, predators position themselves to be in those places and build the trust of others and you, in order to gain access to your children.  That's why you will hear stories of sexual abuse coming out of organizations that should be reputable, like the Boy Scouts, many churches, schools, and even doctor's offices.

Unfortunately, this topic has personally touched my life, and maybe it has yours too because pursuing children is a secret work, not talked about enough.

Protecting your children is, in my opinion, one of the most important works of the Ultimate Homemaker and there are many things you can do to help keep them safe:

1.  Look out for adults and older teens that are touchy-feely and do things like rub shoulders or invite children to sit on their laps.
2.  If anything an adult is doing creeps your or child out, create distance and keep an eye out.
3.  Adults who take on a buddy-buddy role with children, i.e. offers to take them out to do things alone like go for a burger, fishing, to the mall, writes letters, texts,  IM's or e-mails to them, that's a red flag.
4. Predators may be extra friendly to you and your family. If it feels weird, it's probably a problem.
5. Predators may use "God's wishes" to talk about inappropriate topics, for instance a church leader goes into detail to talk about masturbation to a child in the name of God's disgust, red flag! If it can't be talked about with another adult present, it shouldn't be talked about in private with your child.
6. Predators parentify or adultify children, talking to them too freely about things that are not age appropriate in order to make the child feel like they are more grown up than they are.
7. Always insist on two-deep leadership.  Never let an adult, even a friend, a teacher, or scout leader take your child out on their own.
8.  Educate your child to never let anyone touch their private parts, and you can tell them if Grandpa or Doctor So and So did anything that made you feel icky to say something.
9.  Tell your children that when an adult tells them not to tell, that's means they need to tell.
10.  Teach your children that you are a safe place, that you will never let that person's threats come to pass.

This is just a very brief write-up on this topic.  I know what it feels like to be abused, and I also know what it is like to raise seven children who have not been abused.  So I hope that this perspective will help you to navigate your children safely to adulthood.  I'm sure I will write more on this topic in greater detail in the future, but I just wanted to get this out there to maybe help at least one family through this as soon as possible.