How to Protect Children from Sexual Predators
by Paula Bruce, Ph.D.
Here are some important things for parents to pay attention to:
1. Ensure that safety precautions are in place to protect your child at home, school, church, clubs or other activities, especially those involving special trips and overnight outings. Have the adults in these organizations undergone background checks? Are adults ever alone with a child? If yes, when and why? How can these activities be restructured to avoid isolation?
2. Stay involved in your child’s activities. Meet your child’s teachers, coaches, and activity leaders. Keep track of where, and with whom, your child is if she or he is not with you.
3. Be alert for adults or adolescents, particularly males, who display an unusual interest in children. Please keep in mind that females can also be perpetrators of sexual abuse.
4. Do not allow anyone to have unsupervised access to children if he or she seems more interested in spending time with children than with his or her own peers, seems focused on children of a particular age or gender (especially if the person does not have children of that age), singles out a child for special attention, gifts, or favors, wants to take a child on special outings without others present, seems eager to spend alone-time with a child, invites children into his or her home unsupervised, allows or encourages children to do “grown up” things or things they are not allowed to do at home. It’s not cute; it’s inappropriate.
5. Recognize that most child sexual abuse is perpetrated by someone who is known to the child. Sexual abuse is more likely in families where (a) other abuse is tolerated (b) the family hides embarrassing secrets (c) the family is rigid and tightly controlled (d) there is a demand for blind, absolute loyalty (e) there are poor role definitions (f) there is disrespect for each others' privacy, rights, individuality (g) the parents are poorly differentiated in their families of origin, never became fully mature adults or able to function as competent parents (h) there is a conflictual marriage or troubled divorce (i) the children are expected to act like adults, play adult roles before they are ready (j) there has been lots of moving, change, traumatic stress (k) there is a low level of appropriate touch, where parents never hug, caress or cuddle their children, as normal families do and (l) there is sometimes a compensating veneer of religiosity in the family.
Due to fear, guilt or shame, children may often be reluctant to disclose sexual abuse, or may even retract earlier disclosures of sexual abuse. Parents must be alert to the fact that this disclosure pattern may exist and should not wait for a child's disclosure to confirm suspected sexual abuse, or be reassured solely by a child's denial of sexual abuse. By recognizing the behavior of child sexual predators, and by understanding the factors that leave children vulnerable to sexual abuse, parents can gain greater control in protecting their children from child sexual abuse.
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