No one thinks about their child being abused! If you suspect or have found that your child was sexually abused – you are not alone! Most parents believe their child when they disclose abuse. However, totally understanding the realities and effects on their child is a process – not an event.
Twenty-twenty hindsight gradually reveals missed signs that a child’s safety was in jeopardy. Parents of sexually abused children have noted the following behaviors of offenders that originally may not have been understood.
- Poor boundaries around children/little or no respect for privacy for themselves or others
- Refuses to let a child set any of his or her own limits. Insists on hugging, touching, kissing, tickling, wrestling with, or holding a child even when the child clearly does not want this affection
- Is overly interested in the sexuality of a particular child or teen (e.g., talks repeatedly about the child’s developing body or interferes with normal teen dating)
- Manages to get time alone or insists on time alone with a child with no interruptions
- Spends most of his/her spare time with children and has little interest in spending time with someone his/her own age
- Regularly offers to baby-sit many different children for free or takes children on overnight outings alone
- Buys children gifts or gives them money for no apparent reason
- Frequently walks in on children/teens in the bathroom or bedroom
- Allows children or teens to consistently get away with inappropriate and/or sexualized behaviors
- Interested in pornography and/or browses pornography online
For more information about what to look for and how to confront inappropriate behaviors around children, visit the link below:
