Protecting your child from inappropriate touch

I was chatting with someone today who told me how important it is to speak openly with children about inappropriate touch, in order to protect them.

She told me how upsetting it had been to find out that several of her nephews had been molested, and asked them why they didn’t tell anyone. One nephew told her that the person who did it was so well-respected that no one would have believed him. I told her this is frequently what happens, as predators actively work to cultivate an image of someone above reproach – this is the halo effect, something I described in my post on the grooming process. (When I moved to Israel after writing this, I met a blog reader who said thanks to this post, she was able to recognize that a Shabbos guest was grooming her child and immediately take steps to cut contact with that person.)

The daughter of the woman I was speaking with is now an adult, but when she was a child, her mother told her: “There are people who want to touch others private areas and that’s wrong – no matter if it’s a family member, friend, community member or stranger. If anyone ever touches you, tell them no and come to tell me right away.”

Telling a child someone may want to touch the private parts of their body is more specific than most of us want to be, and I think that mentally we rebel at saying that, since it’s uncomfortable for us to think about, and it’s uncomfortable to say. Even if we’re willing to have the conversation, there’s a tendency to want to be more general.

But this preparation equipped her daughter to respond with clarity when the time came.

When she was eleven years old, she had a sleepover at the home of a friend. During the night, the friend’s thirteen year old brother came into the room, pulled down her blanket and began to touch her. She woke up and said, “What are you doing!? Don’t touch me!” He said, ‘Oh, I got mixed up – I thought you were (name of his sister).”

“You can’t touch your sister like that, either, that’s wrong!” She marched to the parents bedroom at 3 am, and knocked on their door to wake them up and tell them what happened. They tried to calm her down, but she insisted she wanted to call her mother right away. She made the call, her mother answered and immediately came to pick her up.

I was amazed by this story. In the middle of the night, in someone else’s home, she stood her ground and protected her boundaries. She didn’t let anyone make excuses for the boy and what he did; she repeatedly asserted that it was wrong. She wasn’t intimidated by an older boy, or by his parents. She wasn’t afraid to wake them up at 3 am, and she trusted her mother to be available for her in the middle of the night to help her.

The mother told me that as someone who had been molested, who froze in the moment and was unable to object, it was healing for her to educate her daughter to respond differently, and for her daughter to have been able to protect herself.

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Later in the day, I went outside to check on ds9 and dd8, who were playing outside in the parking lot. Soon after I came out, ds9 (who happens to have Down syndrome) came over and told me when he approached several children, one of them had shown him his private parts. We’ve taught our children the correct anatomical names so they have appropriate vocabulary; he was specific about what he saw, and he was clear that it wasn’t right.

I let the mother of the child know (it’s not fun to tell someone, but it’s irresponsible not to tell). While I was speaking to her, ds9 came over and repeated to her what had happened. I told her if she had questions she could ask him, but she didn’t feel it necessary; whatever he said was clear enough that she didn’t doubt him. I told him it was very good he told me, and reassured him that the mother was going to take care of it.

When I was later thinking back about the story of the eleven year old girl and how remarkable it was, I realized that right here in my own family, on that same day, ds9 had shown the same kind of clarity and boundary setting. We’ve talked about appropriate physical boundaries, and as soon as someone went beyond those boundaries, my son came to me and told me what happened.

I really like this book by Brocha Goetz, a friend from Baltimore, and have read it many times with our children: Talking About Personal Privacy. It’s not scary or threatening, but delineates what is appropriate and what isn’t, and what a response should be if someone crosses that line.

It’s really important that children are told what is appropriate and what isn’t. If they don’t have that clearly delineated, if something happens, even if it feels wrong to the child, he is likely to stay silent, thinking the older or more confident person must be right.

And we have to stress that it’s okay to say no, no matter who that person is, no matter when it happens.

Secondly, they need to know they can tell you what happened, and know that you will listen to and believe them, and not doubt them, get angry or blame them. You are their protector. They can say ‘no’, but they need you to back them up. I have heard and read of horrendous stories of parents who turned a blind eye, ignored active abuse happening right in front of them, or blamed the victim rather than confront the abuser. A response like that is just as traumatic as the abuse itself.

We owe it to our children to have uncomfortable conversations with them about their safety – what I wrote in 2011 about protecting our children and teaching them to listen to their gut instinct is still relevant now. I wish we lived in a world that was so safe that there would be no reason to have these conversations with our children, but if we don’t talk about it, we put them at more risk. In every community, regardless of race or religion, there people who prey on others.

Never think that because you live in a religious community filled with good and moral people, that this couldn’t happen. Tragically, it happens all the time.

Avivah