neighbor arrested and my children trigger

neighbor arrested and my children trigger
K

klab

Registrant
my neighbor has 6 children who played with my twins, the "father" (i use this term very loosly) was arrested for agravated assalt on a minor. I never liked him but their children spent many hours daly at my house and altho i never let them go in their house they spent time in their yard (wich i can see from my back porch where i am when they are outside (i fear too much for them to let them out alone as they are 7 years and i am way too fearful due to my past) yet *sigh dcys took their children and he is in jail but now i not only am strongly reminded of my past but i fear more about my twins. ok i am rambling but heres what i need some suggestions on.
how do i broch the subject without taking their innocence away. my wife made us all sit down at the dinner table used for all meals and any subjects that are important, and told them that their friends daddy was arrested and the children are not home and went into fostercare (this all made no sence to me to tell them)then she proceeded to tell them why and asked if anyone touched them wrong they said no and my son laughed and said he would beat them up and my daughter just started to wail and say you mean her friend will not be back and cried and cried. i told my wife that the discussion stops here and tried to comfort my daughter . now from their reactions i think they were not touched or had any knowledge of anything. but i am sooo fearful of the possibility. what should i do?
 
Good question. You want to keep them safe without making them feel dirty or bad right?

I'm not a parent but I would do it like this:

Ask them "What if" questions. Questions like "What if your babysitter asked you to take a bath with him/her, what would you say?"

or.......

"What if your neighbor started touching you around this area of your body, what would you say?"

"What if" questions are the way that I would approach it.

My parents never had the foresight to do that and I got perped and didn't tell my parents, and he knew that I wounldn't because he could tell that my parents never had one of those conversations with me. Obviously, it's one of the most important conversations one can have with their kids.
 
what if question oh now why didn't i think of that, i tell you why lol my mind was so in shock that all i could think was oh LORD not my babbies. funny thing is now my mom askes question some 30 years later, (so i told her everything)and she looked at me with this extreamly blank look and says why on earth didn't you tell me? i'm like you mean i didn't ? she used to ask me questions when i sleeped cuz i would talk and answer questions truthfully lol and get in trouble the next day lol i thought she knew anywho i digress
thank you for that insight it will definately help
klab
 
This was courtesy of:

https://www.project82.com/index.cgi


What can you do to prevent childhood sexual abuse?
This is not always an easy question to answer, especially since most of the victims, like me, will know their abuser. There are a number of things you can do to prevent or minimize the chances your child will become a victim of sexual abuse.
In my opinion, you need to trust and act upon your instincts. I have gone back and talked to adults that were around at the time I was being abused.
Almost every one of the said something to the effect of "I knew something was going on between you and the scoutmaster..something just didn't seem right"

If you think something is wrong, you are probably right. Don't be afraid to tell a person that they can't hang around your son or daughter anymore. Your child is counting on you to protect them. If you are wrong about your feelings, so what. If you are right, then you just saved your child from a life time of horrible nightmares.

Here are a few other things you can do:

* Know where your children are at all times. Be familiar with their friends and daily activities. Teach your child if he or she becomes lost to quickly tell a policeman that he or she needs help.
* Be sensitive to changes in your children's behavior; they are a signal that you should sit down and talk to them.
* Be alert to a teenager or adult who is paying an unusual amount of attention to your children or giving them inappropriate or expensive gifts.
* Teach your children to trust their own feelings, and assure them that they have the right to say no to what they sense is wrong.
* Listen carefully to your children's fears, and be supportive in all your discussions with them.
* Teach your children that no one should approach them or touch them in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable. If someone does, they must tell you immediately.
* Be careful about babysitters and any other individuals who have custody of your children. Obtain references from people you trust and see if you can have access to background screening information about these individuals. Many states give people access to sex offender registries and criminal histories.
 
Hauser,

That is an excellent list.

I wouldn't necessarily advise this approach, but this discussion has recalled to my mind something I did when I enrolled my daughter in high school. It was a private school, and one of the things required before a child could be admitted was a meeting that included the child, at least one parent, the school principal, and at least one other staff member or teacher.

Please bear in mind that this was prior to my coming out of denial about my past, and while I was still an angry and aggressive man in certain situations.

I took my daughter to that meeting and met with the male principal and one of the male high school teachers. When the meeting was over, I asked my daughter to step out in the hall. When the door closed behind her I turned to the two men who were seated there and said, "If I ever find out that you or any of your staff have harmed my daughter in any way, I'll personally come down here and kill you!" I then got up and walked out.

The irony of the situation is that after our daughter graduated and went on to college, both of those men were arrested and jailed for having sex with female students at least one of whom was a classmate of our daughter.

When I informed her of those events she reassured me that neither those men or any other staff at that school had ever acted inappropriately.

I think the lesson to be learned from that experience is that parents need to be proactive when it comes to their children's safety in any of the events that kids usually participate in. If a parent can't be there themselves, they need to take some kind of action that puts potential perps on notice that they are being watched and even the hint of inappropriate behavior toward your child will be dealt with forthwith and severely.

In retrospect, I'm not sure threatening to Kill is a wise move, but I think a parent can very easily get the point across using other means. Bottom line is that child perps are cowards and usually will not dare to cross a line where they sense that the parent(s) are proactive in protecting their children.

Lots of love,

John
 
Klab,

Hauser's list is a good one from an adult's perspective, so in adding to it I would just like to look at things from a child's point of view and ask how parents can address that.

As a father of two kids now grown up, I can tell you that looking back I can see several things that my wife and I did that were important to their safety from predators and at the same time allowed them to continue with their view of their world as an essentially safe place.

I think the most important thing we did was to validate them every chance we had. A kid desperately needs that. Without making it look fake or contrived, we tried to show them they were wanted, special and important. Lots of activities were planned around them and their wants, interests and needs.

A kid also needs to understand that a bad deed and a bad kid are entirely different. When we had to discipline our two, we tried to make sure they understood that while we were rejecting what they had done, we still loved them personally without conditions or limitations. We never told them they were a "bad boy" or "bad girl". We never held a past infraction against them as something we could refer to again in the future. That is, we tried to avoid giving them this feeling that there was some "badness" about them that we were going to hold against them forever.

Kids are learning about the world and don't easily express their fears and concerns directly. We tried to be sensitive to their signals that something was wrong. When a kid comes home from school in tears and runs up to his room and slams his door, well, you can bet your bottom dollar something is very wrong. But when you ask, the answer will often be, "Nothing, I'm okay." That's just code for "I don't even know how to begin talking about this." Another typical coded message goes like this: "A friend of mine asked me ...., and I didn't know what to say."

I guess there are lots of other things that can be said and done, but the bottom line is that we need to build a solid basis of trust with our kids. They need to know that no matter what it is, no matter how bad, not matter what crap they are being told or threatened with, they can still come to us.

Much love,
Larry
 
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