Learning to Protect My Children from Sexual Abuse

I have 5 children ages 24, 17, 12, and 6 year old twins. With my older children, the “specific thought” of protecting my children from sexual abuse never entered my mind. Even though I had been abused myself as a child; I think there was part of me that still could not give myself complete absolution from it being my fault. Clearly I still felt on some level that I was to blame in some way and that is why men that I knew and who lived in my parents safe world could molest me. As a parent – this makes my world safe – because my children were innocent and hence would be safe. And the world I chose to live in as an adult did not include sex offenders. My parent’s world had alcoholics in it – I was living in a church world and no one would ever touch my innocent children. Hence all was safe in my world.

So 4 years ago, when my safe world was blow apart by finding out that my step-father had molested my daughter – I still boxed it in. He was a sick man. I certainly knew he had many problems – I never took the leap that his problems included molesting children – remember that does not happen in my world. But after I found out, I removed the molester from having any contact with my children. There. Safe world again. Thank God. If you had asked me at that point in my life what was the worst thing that could ever happen to a woman it was to find out that her child had been molested.

Then a year ago, a bomb went off in my world again – only it was much closer to home. When it was my husband doing the molesting, it rocked my world. This was the man that had walked through the horror with me of finding out our child had been molested. He raged, he cried, he was protective; he did everything you would want a Dad to do. Never - ever - ever did it enter my mind that my husband – the one I loved, the one who God had sent to heal my own wounds, the father to my children, my life-long partner, would ever do ANYTHING like that. But he did. And of course now I know there is something even worse that finding out your child has been molested by an extended family member.

Now as you can imagine – no one is considered a safe adult in my world. OK let’s get gut level honest here; I mistrust men more than women. You cannot blame me because of all I have been through. When my youngest daughter Mae was struggling and missing her Dad so much, someone suggested maybe getting her a big brother of sorts. They knew me and my situation well and suggested maybe someone from church, etc. I want you to know I went through the process of wondering who I would hand my innocent 6 year old daughter over to and allow them to spend time with her. OK – no one. Nothing personal – no one. Not one person – ever. Not even the Pastor or the President of the United States. There was not one male in the entire world getting alone time with my daughter. It was my husband and the man I trusted most in the world who molested my other daughter - I know you get where I am coming from and now I can tell you my thinking at that moment was starting to get healthy about protecting my children.

Which brings me to the present; in building this web-site and looking for other sites that I could recommend from here, I looked up www.Darkness2Light.org once again. While there, I saw they had an online class about protecting our children and although I attended an educational group locally to help me chaperone my husband with my children, I am also aware there are many women in the United States and around the world in my position who have no such classes. So I wanted to take this class to see if it would be good for them.

This class was very empowering. OK – do you know the statistics? I did not. I want you take a minute and write down the names of 10 children you know – four girls and 6 boys. Add your children’s names to the mix, friends of your children, your nieces and nephews. Got them? OK – now which 2 is it? Do you know? Can you figure it out? Because statistically one of the girls and one of those boys on that list will be molested by the age of 18. One in four girls and one in six boys! It is an epidemic! Those figures are staggering! Those figures are scary. And I want to make sure that my younger children do not become one of those statistics!

In hind sight with my step-father – all of the signs were there. He spent years grooming my daughter before he molested her. I did not even know the word grooming then. If you don’t know it now – get over to that site and take that class.
My answer to the question of who would I give one on one alone time with my daughter – was completely healthy and dead on! Just simply removing one on one alone time with any adults and your children drastically reduces the chances of them being molested!

I do not see all of the grooming signs with my husband and daughter, but am also perfectly willing to say that I may be just too close to that situation and have not reached that point in my healing yet. Don’t worry – I will get there. But it doesn’t matter if I ever do, because in my world any person is a potential child molester and it is my responsibility to give my children a safe environment.

I love the Darkness 2 Light approach. They talk about the fact that as a society, we really are focusing on teaching our children to protect themselves – but we are not focusing on educating the adults.

Here are some other statistics they cite beyond the 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys:

Less than 1 in 10 children who are molested will tell someone they were abused.

34% of those children will be molested by a family member

59% of those children will be molested by a close friend or acquaintance

The median age of those children is 9 years old.

Their take is that this is happening frequently enough to suggest that it is being passively accepted and even overlooked.

I count myself in that passive group in the past. I am passive no longer.

They talk about becoming consciously aware of the facts, choosing to passionately create a safe environment for our children, empowering ourselves to take action, even if we don’t know the outcome – it is better to err on the side of caution.

They also talk about relentless compassion. They insistence on accountability – holding perpetrators accountable for the effects on children and our communities – and doing that with compassion. (Read an interesting story of hope in one neighborhood here: http://stopitnow.com/community_member )

I was an empowering life changing class! I think everyone who has access to children should take it. I know I am glad I did.

K