Helping children to help themselves and others
When it comes to the abuse of children, here’s what I think!
- I think the abuse of a young child is an utter abomination.
- I think the family and friends of an abused child should "be there" for that child.
- I think the family and friends of an abused child should bend over backwards to let that child know that they are there for him or her.
- I think that we should do whatever it takes to assure the child that no blame—at any level or to any degree—is attached to him or her.
- I think that all that assurance should be expressed in a context of warm affection so that the child doesn’t feel she/he is being treated as "a case" or "a problem".
- I think that even if what I propose here is useful it is the child that matters ultimately and not the sound proposal or the "good advice". Proposals are made for children and not children for proposals.
Abusers need to be dealt with! The colossal scale of child abuse and
of the child-porn industry is staggering. It isn’t only priests that are
being exposed as engaging in these crimes. Police chiefs, lawyers,
judges, doctors and preachers as well as family members are at it. It’s
ungodly that a child should be abused once but I can’t help thinking we can do more to keep a child from being abused a second time. How can we do more?
I think we should cultivate a society of child whistle-blowers!
This is such a highly charged issue that you may not be able to hear
me very well or you may disagree with my proposal. But if you think
there is some merit in the drift of the piece, then write me and suggest
ways we can work toward improving things. Or perhaps you can think of
something better (and that would be a wonderful thing!)
I don’t think we can lead children en masse to become
whistle-blowers overnight. We can’t bully children into telling someone
about an abusive incident. "If anyone touches you, you’d better tell me.
D’you hear?!" yelled at a child by a high-strung parent just doesn’t
get it done. No, we need people who are wise and devoted to the job and
who will commit much of their time and all of their giftedness to help
us in this area. We need to at least try to establish a societal ethos
that, when a child has been approached or abused, that that child will
think it not only "normal" if they blow the whistle on the perpetrator,
but they will think it is expected of them. I think we need to
free them from the pressures to be silent but beyond that, I think we
need to so teach and shape them that they will actually feel a
responsibility to speak up!
What if a man or woman made a move on a child and the child
immediately reported it to a significant adult? Yes, but that’s just it,
they are afraid or ashamed. I don’t doubt that—it’s manifestly true in
many cases. But I think there should be a concerted, insistent, and
society-wide effort to remove the fear and shame.
"Yes, yes, but that’s been tried and....."
When and where has it truly been tried? When did we see society
attempt to arm children against silence as we have seen it move against
smoking and boozing? Where is the mass of material, advertisements,
editorials, books, magazines, television, and radio programs addressed
to this?
We can try ten and twelve-year-old children for murder but can’t
teach them over the months and years that we fully expect them to blow
the whistle on sexual predators? Why couldn’t we at least try to put the
educational programs in place that would shape and teach children that
are abused more than once by anyone that they are expected to blow the
whistle the first time? Yes there are some difficulties and complexities
to be worked out. What if a child misunderstands a parent or
caretaker’s physical examination initiated due to some fever or illness?
What if an angry or maladjusted child falsely accuses some adult of
inappropriate contact out of anger or spite? Each case needs to be
approached carefully and sensitively but these exceptional circumstances
should not stand in the way of a society becoming pro-active in a
general and widespread way.
It isn’t possible to undo the abominable thing that has happened to them but we can certainly help them so that that
criminal won’t abuse them again. We need to help these children to open
their mouths the first time something of this sort happens.
Yes, there are personal, private feelings of shame and embarrassment.
Yes, predators DO level all kinds of threats to silence and coerce
their young victims. But children en masse desperately need to be
so instructed and formed and shaped to understand (through whatever
public forum we can possibly use) that:
- They are NOT responsible for the abuse they have suffered and that no one will hold them responsible for it.
- NO ONE should make moves on them (spell that out however it needs to be spelled out).
- People who abuse them need to be stopped. Not just for their sake, but for the sake of other children they might also abuse.
- They are doing society a great service by speaking up.
We ought to start such programming right away. Maybe, if it did
nothing else, it might make a would-be predator think twice. It might
make one who is in their first stages of thinking about such things be
afraid to even try it. Locked doors and windows don’t deter experienced
and determined criminals, but they do keep out multitudes of novices and
deter legions of would-be burglars! And over time, surely many children
could find the strength and the voice they need to protect themselves
from the despicable behavior of others.
It hacks me off to hear about some corrupt adult abusing some child
scores of times over a period of months or years. Whatever that abuser
told that child to keep them from speaking up should have been offset by
preventative shaping and instruction!
To devise a national ad campaign for the purpose of forewarning and
forearming children who have not yet been abused would be a great help,
but I think we need to go beyond that. In some tactful and sensitive way
we need to imply a stigma on the silence of a child who has been
abused—perhaps repeatedly—but has not yet blown the whistle. I don’t
mean to hold the child accountable in any punitive way or in a way that
he/she would feel we blame them, but we need to let children know that
they not only can, but must play an active role in preventing incidents
of abuse—especially repeated abuse. Whether it's possible to tell a
child you "should" speak up without adding hurt to the child is a
question I think worthy of reflection and exchange.
What has especially troubled me over the years are cases of
"strangers" (priests, club leaders, social workers etc) molesting this
child or that REPEATEDLY for long periods. These now-grown people are
coming out of the woodwork. Of course we want to be sensitive to the
difficulties involved here but I'm weary of hearing the difficulties
ceaselessly regurgitated and poked over one more time with all their
constituent elements being analyzed one...more...time. The vast child porn industry could and should be explained in part (!) by our refusal to shape children to say, "That man...."
Children 10 and 12 are committing brutal murder but we're afraid to
hold them accountable if they keep their mouths shut about some
lecherous civic leader preying on them or perhaps a whole circle of
children?
We need to strive for a healthier balance here. On the one hand we're
breeding a victim mentality and on the other we’re watching children
eight and ten years-old and upwards cursing police, throwing stones and
smashing cars without fear or shame. We lament their boldness and wonder
at their savagery. It’s true that these children are not necessarily
the abused children but if our society can produce this sort of boldness
without hardly trying who knows what we could produce if we tried. And I'm not talking about merely handing out "information"! God help us, we’re swamped with "information".
We're so afraid of appearing unsympathetic that all we can do is damn
the perpetrator and hug the victim. It isn't difficult to show the
difficulties that exist in this area. And it isn’t hard to understand
some poor soul shouting, "You wouldn't think it was so easy to speak up if..."
But when we keep speaking in the presence of children (as if they
didn't hear us), outlining the perfectly good reasons why they won't
speak up should it surprise us that we're frightening them into
continued silence.
What might happen if we had a sustained campaign and presented child
whistle-blowers as heroes? Imagine a TV ad, a nine year-old girl or boy
walks into the local police station and says, "I want to report an
assault!" Not a cute little, sweet-smiling child or a pathetic face with
"poor victim" written all over it. No, a sober boy or girl that wants
this dealt with. "Interviews" could be taped, the right questions and
scripted answers all provided. Child actors being asked, "Were you not
afraid to come forward?" And answering, "Well, yes....but..."
Recently, the U.S.A. had a 10 year old grounded by her mother. She
went and got their gun and shot her mother dead. Shot her in the face.
Here in the U.K. we had two pre-teen boys batter a little boy to death
and throw his body on a railway line to cover their crime. A society
that can produce that needs to look again at what they're not trying to do.