by Mere Davis 

There was a time when child abuse was the norm. Children were originally assets to help families with labor, to small adults, to now idolized and precious. It’s true that children are more valued today than they ever have been, but child abuse is a social problem that exists.

The number of children maltreated is impossible to document, however children are harmed daily by their own family members. As a matter of fact, 50% of all homicide victims under the age of 10 are killed by their own parents. Yet, there doesn’t seem to be any urgency from our lawmakers to end this problem. Children have very few laws protecting them, and some may say the ones that were passed were simply knee-jerk reactions to shut up concerned parents after watching the news.

Child abuse occurs mostly in homes. Due to the overload and under training caseworkers are given, abused children are neglected by our own child protection professionals. How are we supposed to go to other homes and protect children at-risk of abuse? We can’t, but we can be aware, and we can protect our own children from abusers that can easily enter their lives. 

One of the most talked about forms of child abuse is sexual abuse, and statistically speaking it happens by someone the child knows. Unfortunately children rarely disclose this information, due to fear, shame or confusion; often they block this out or have been groomed to believe that they are special to the abuser. 

Predators are usually not as they are portrayed in films. They are often well liked members of the community, and if a child has the opportunity to testify against them in court, children often do not get justice because they aren’t believed. This could be failure to disclose sooner, or not enough physical evidence. 

In a study of 399 children aged 8 to 15, Elliott and Briere (1994) find that of 248 subjects assessed as having been sexually abused, 74.9% did not disclose their abuse to anyone within the year that it first occurred, and 17.8% had waited more than five years to tell anyone”, (Olafson & Lederman, P.30,Winter,2006).

In 1983 Dr. Roland C. Summit, created the diagnosis Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome:“This syndrome is composed of five categories:

• Secrecy, 
• helplessness, 
• entrapment and accommodation, 
• delayed unconvincing disclosure,
• retraction (Summit, p.1,1983). 

This syndrome is a model that is used to help physicians understand the “complex and controversial dynamics of sexual victimization”, (Summit, p.1,1983). That said, the syndrome is helpful for us, and most importantly a complex coping system a child has created in order to deal with a horrible trauma that should never have happened to them.

If children can go their entire lives keeping this secret, how can we make sure these trusted figures do not harm our children? We can’t. That said, talking to our kids about setting boundaries is crucial, and interfering with the grooming process, which is often the first stage of sexual abuse is key.

Stated in RAINN “grooming is manipulative behaviors that the abuser uses to gain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse, and reduce the risk of being caught”. 
 

Grooming behaviors & signs in educators:

• Grooming Families- befriending a parent: offering to take an overworked parent's child to school. Stopping over on holiday breaks with gifts.
• Trust development with the child: an abuser often selects victims, who may seem vulnerable, or “over achievers”. For example: only one parent. They may use phrases like, “my dad left too, I’d love to throw football after school just don’t tell anyone”.
• Offering side jobs: mowing grass in the summer, helping paint the house or redecorate the music room after school, or doing lunch/free periods.
• Discussing sexual topics or touching (that may even appear innocent) If a child is younger, a predator may leave his phone out on his desk. A common scenario that has occurred would be discreetly showing a child a pornographic photo or tiktok video while other students are nearby, “I didn’t mean to leave that out, wait does this photo bother you? or do you like it”? This is grooming, but also sexual abuse.

  If the student is older, and the teacher may be closer in age, for example the student is 16 and the teacher is 24 these behaviors may be harder to recognize. Please be on the lookout for grooming behaviors, hugging, friending one another on snapchat, and exchanging secrets. 

Remember we can’t prevent predators from coming into our children’s lives–– but we can try our best to protect them from being their victims.