Let's talk about this: Keeping our kids safe

[garddwr]

Surely this is a relevant and appropriate topic: what can we do/are we doing to keep our kids safe from molestation and abuse?

[Mama Geek]

I had seen several people mention Protecting the Gift. I just finished reading it. I don't agree with everything in it, but there was a lot of good things in it. Read it.

[AmyontheFarm]

I was raped as a child.

 

Talk to your kids. Repeatedly. Embed in their brains that no one is allowed to every ask them or tell them to keep a secret. Tell your children that if they ever think they can't tell you because they have be threatened, they can tell someone else first.

 

My abuser told me that if I told my parents, he would kill them. I became a very young protector of my parents. My mom told me that I should only talk with her about "private" things like my body. I was unfortunately a very obedient child, my abuser knew that. I didn't feel I was allowed to talk to anyone else until I was almost an adult.

 

Talk, talk, talk to your children. If your child can't give you a reason as to why they don't want that babysitter to come back, or why they don't want to go to coach's house, etc. Take that as a cautionary sign, trust your childs gut. Trust your gut instinct.

 

Don't make them sleepover at anyone's house they don't want to go to.

 

Talk to them and reassure them constantly that they can always tell you anything, and they also can tell Grandma, or Aunt Cindy or your best friend, not their best friend. Give them someone else to talk to besides you as the parent.

 

Finally, don't live in fear. Fear doesn't help anything it just drives the darkness further underground.

[Guest submarines]

By trusting them more and respecting them. By not teaching blind obedience.

[Mergath]

I think it's also helpful to keep an eye on who moves into your neighborhood. In the last year, we've had two different level three sex offenders convicted of raping little girls move within three blocks of us in opposite directions, despite the fact that both men are within one block of neighborhood schools and playgrounds. :glare: I know that sexual abuse tends to be committed by people you know, but knowing what the violent predators in your neighborhood look like can't hurt.

[Kathryn]

Ingrain in them that it is NEVER their fault, they will NEVER be in trouble no matter hat the abuser says, and they can ALWAYS tell you. Don't leave them in situations where you aren't 100% sure of the person. Other reasons aside, we have never had a babysitter because my husband was molested by a teenaged girl babysitter and later physically abused by the father of another babysitter. I was raped in my own downstairs bedroom by my first boyfriend while my mother was upstairs because I was too ashamed of what was happening to cry for help.