Protecting Children From Sexual Abuse

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It is possible to greatly decrease the chances of your child being sexually abused. How do you do this you ask?

First, lets talk about how this article came about. As a Treated Sex Offender, I have been continually asked, "How do I protect my child/children from people like you?" The answer is very complicated and detailed. I have attempted to narrow it down to a few simple steps. Yet, these steps will cause the most controversy, because they are uncomfortable to do, and people will worry about hurting a family member’s or friends’ feelings. Yet, these steps will provide more protection for your child than you will ever know. The reason you will never know it is because you are not a Sex Offender. Only a Sex Offender (or a Sex Offender Therapist) will know how effective this plan is. I have spent a great deal of time talking and questioning other sex offenders about this plan and the overwhelming majority said it would have prevented them from abusing their victims. Why? Because the risk of getting caught is too high. More reasons are listed below in some of the steps. I realize this is a very sensitive subject and regretfully most people do not discuss this subject until their child is abused. This is what has to change. The way to protect your children is to make this subject an open topic within the family.

Now, let’s talk about who your children are at the most risk from. The overwhelming majority of all child sexual abusers (90-95%) abuse a family member or family friend. There are varying statistics on how many children are actually abused each year, but on average 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are abused each year (these vary greatly depending on which source is quoted and because a lot of sexual abuse goes unreported).. With that in mind, how do you deter somebody that you trust? Believe me if your child is being targeted by a sex offender, the chances are extremely high that you trust this person. NEVER think that it won’t happen to your children and not do anything to prevent it. All of my victims families trusted me implicitly. The reasons why and how are too in-depth to go into in this article, but will appear in a later one.

To actually deter, prevent, and or stop your child from being sexually abused (it is possible that it may be happening now) will take your continued support and reassurance to your child. I say this because this is not something you do only once – it must be done often! Regardless of how uncomfortable it makes you feel – you must do these things for your child’s sake. Here are some things I believe will help make your child safer and then I will tell you why it will work:

1. BOTH parents (together) talk with your children about sexual abuse. Talk to them alone or together if more than one child-whichever you feel your child/children will be the most comfortable with, and begin as soon as your child can understand sentences and knows the difference between right and wrong on some level. Tell them what inappropriate touching is, and that it is unacceptable from anyone –INCLUDING you as the parents (see last page for books on this subject). I can’t emphasize that last point enough. So many offenders tell their victims that it is OK because they are their Dad or Mom. So tell them together that it is not alright from anyone. Tell them to watch out for people who "jokingly" talk about sex, or that seem to "accidentally" walk in on them when they are in the bathroom or changing clothes – anytime that the child may be undressing. You as the parent can think of other times like these to give as examples. As your child grows older and matures both emotionally and mentally you can increase the depth of these discussions, but never believe that you can stop having them too soon. Continue these until your child understands these things completely and then continue to reassure them of your support. For more details on what to tell your children go to:

2. Develop a network in advance for your children and involve them in the selection of who goes on that list. It should be a list that your children are comfortable with-not you. This is a network of people that your child can turn to in the event they are being sexually abused or feels that someone might be setting them up for sexual abuse. Never make the mistake of believing your child does not need this network, because they do. Not only do they need this network, they need your permission to go to any of them in the event they are abused. It’s not that they actually need your permission, it’s that they need to know ahead of time that you, as the parents, won’t be upset with them and that they won’t get into trouble if they do. This is extremely important, because if the offender is family, your child already feels very confused, scared and would feel even more uncomfortable and confused if he/she had to tell Mom what Dad is doing, or vise-versa. Sex Offenders know this and use it against your children to keep them quite. Update this list with your children often, especially as your child grows older and matures emotionally and mentally, and at least once a year and make any revisions to it. Let your child know that it is alright for them to go to anyone else that is not on the list if they have to.

3. Tell your child that if something does happen to them to tell at least two people on that list and to keep telling until the abuse stops. That if they are abused that an offender may tell them – it is their fault, or that they will get into trouble, or that they will be taken away, or that you ,as the parents will stop loving them and will hate them. Tell them ahead of time that these will never happen and are not true. Sex Offenders use these lies very effectively to silence their victims, and tell them that. When you take away an offenders ability to get his victim to keep silent you take away his power and his desire to target your child. Click here for more details on lies by molesters:

4. Make it a point to reassure your children constantly. The more comfortable they are the more confidence they build and their self-confidence can be a very strong deterrent to most sex offenders – I personally stayed away from children with strong self confidence because I believed I couldn’t get them to keep my terrible secrets, and a lot of offenders are the same way.

5. Let all the people on your child’s network list know that they are on it. Let them know your child has your permission to contact them in the event something happens and ask if they are alright with it. (Then tell them about this plan that you are doing so they can do it with their children.)

6. This one is one of the most important steps I can tell you about. This step is the one EVERY other abuse prevention plan doesn’t tell you about, but it’s the most important. In addition to those on your child’s network, let ALL of your family and friends, as well as, your child’s friends parents – especially those that your child is closely involved with – sleepovers and the such - know about this plan in detail! No matter how uncomfortable it maybe, because trust me - it is not only important - but vital to your child’s safety. Also, tell all your new friends about it as well – never believe you can stop doing it. I’ll list all the reason why next.

7. Now for why this will be effective with deterring a sex offender (it’s not absolute- but it would have deterred me and numerous other offenders that I know). By doing these things and going over them with your child often – updating your network, friends, neighbors, etc. – you are letting anyone that is a potential sex offender (active or inactive) know that you, your child, and friends are prepared for them. That their lies will not be believed by your child and your child WILL tell on them without any hesitation. I’m sure you are wondering how will an offender know these things? Simple – YOU told them already! Remember what was said earlier about 90-95% of all child sexual abuse victims are victimized by family or friends? So, if your child is/was being targeted by an offender the chances are enormous that he is someone that you know and trust and could be even someone on your child’s network – that’s why you have your child tell 2 people on that list – it provides and extra safety measure for your child. Because a sex offender takes advantage of children’s vulnerabilities, being a victim of previous sexual abuse is a big one that they could easily exploit. By following this plan you have in effect told these potential offenders they are going to get caught ahead of time. Sex Offenders generally target children where the risk of getting caught is sufficiently low enough to be worth the risk they are taking. This plan puts your children in, what I believe to be, an unacceptable risk category. This means they will target someone else and leave your child alone. Which is what I and other offenders did. When I was targeting children I would have immediately removed your children off my ‘mental’ list of potential children. As disgusting as that sounds it is very true. That is why telling every one you know about this plan is so important. That is really the secret to its success. Afterall, for years parents have been telling their children about inappropriate touching, the lies, staying away from strangers and other things about child molesters, but this hasn’t prevented a lot of children from being abused. It probably was the reason the abuse ended when it did, but it had very little to do with true prevention. That’s because no one was telling the potential offender ahead of time. Telling any would be offender that your child is prepared for them WILL scare most of them off.

One thing I will assure you, when you stop letting people (friends, family, neighbors, etc. know about this plan, someone like me could be just waiting for the opportunity. So, please don’t ever stop working this plan, inform everyone you know and that your child comes in close contact with, including teachers, coaches, ministers, etc. I personally work my treatment everyday – its what keeps me from getting anywhere close to hurting another child - something I am committed to never doing again. In essence, by you and your family working this plan, you would be making it virtually impossible for me and most other offenders to hurt your child. I must tell you that this does not make your children 100% safe. There are still those sex offenders that do chose children that are strangers (they are a very small percentage of all child sexual abusers 6% to 9%). That’s where the talks of avoiding strangers in cars and stuff are still vitally important to continue. There are also those offenders who are so arrogant that believe they won’t get caught.

This article was written by a Treated Sex Offender. What makes me qualified to talk on this subject? As a Sex Offender, I spent years targeting children and determining which children I could potentially abuse without getting caught. I am the type of person the "experts" come to ask questions of about sex offender behavior, after all aren’t the real experts the ones who have been doing it for years? The problem is most sex offenders aren't willing to talk about these things. The reasons for that should be obvious—It would make it harder for them to continue doing what they enjoy - sexually abusing children. Through treatment and years of working closely with other sex offenders, I’ve learned and studied their targeting methods and have discovered a lot of similarities. It is my hope that this article can help to make your children safer from people like myself.

I have provided a sample ‘form’ type letter that can be used, if you chose, to notify family and friends about this Abuse Protection Plan to simplify a possibly uncomfortable task. Possibly the only thing you need to do is send/give them a copy of this plan, and the related articles, so they can be working it also. If everyone is doing it the rate of child sexual abuse would drop dramatically. It is about protecting your children and it is vitally important that you inform everyone including all family, trust me, the person you overlook or think surely he/she would never do anything like that is the one that may come back to haunt you. At least it was that way with my victim’s families. Even after my arrest and their child telling them it was true they didn’t/couldn’t believe it. So please don’t overlook anyone – IT REALLY DOES MATTER! The form is included on the last page. I hope it helps.

For more related articles about this topic and others about sex offenders go to or click here:

http://http://soinformation.1colony.com/questions.html

http://soinformation.1colony.com/preventingabuse.html

http://soinformation.1colony.com/SOawareness.html

http://www.missingkids.com/html/sexoffender.html

SO information Home Page

An excellent guide for teaching your children about sexual abuse is A Very Touching Book by Jan Hindman; for teens No Is Not Enough by Caren Adams, Jennifer Fay, and Jan-Loreen Martin; for adults By Silence Betrayed by John Crewdson.

I hope and pray that this article was informative and that you implement it as soon as possible.

Our family is working our Abuse Prevention Plan and is notifying ALL our family and friends that we have an Abuse Prevention Plan in place to protect our children from being sexually abused. We have decided to take a more direct approach to our child’s/children’s safety.

Some of you may be asked to be a part of our child’s/children’s contact network, but that is our child’s decision. Please do not be offended if you are not chosen, after all they still may contact you if they feel they need to.

We also hope that in no way that this letter offends you. We know this letter does not apply to the overwhelming majority of people in society, but there are those who it does apply to. After learning that the largest amount of victims are abused by family and friends, we believe that in our child’s/children’s best interest we must do these things to safeguard them. In fact, we expect the same from our family and friends and expect to receive similar letters or discussions, and eagerly await them. We have enclosed a copy of the actual Abuse Prevention Plan for your convenience.

We are letting everyone know we have discussed at great length everything in the abuse Prevention Plan with our child/children. Our child/children are well prepared for any one who would want to hurt them and have our unconditional love, support and reassurance and know not to believe anything else. They have also been well informed on typical lies that are told to innocent victims to silence them. Our children have numerous people to contact in the event someone is trying to hurt them. We are committed to ensuring our child’s/children’s safety and will review, reinforce and update this plan with them often.

We would expect no less from our families and friends because we know you love your children as we do ours. Thank you for letting us into your home with such a sensitive subject. But, as we have learned, it is that sensitivity – a reluctance to talk about this – that allows these perpetrators to hurt our children.