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Will Our Children Really Be Any Safer?
This is the question that we all
want the answer to. After all, if the children will not be safer, why
bother with all the hassle, the conflict, and the time. The problem
is—there is no easy or simple answer to that question. The
conventional wisdom among experts is that our efforts will make
children safer. However, in order to assess whether children will
really be safer, we need to look at a couple of different factors and
then decide for ourselves whether the possibility of a safer world is
more than a pipe dream.
The necessary conditions
The background against which these
questions need to be asked and evaluated is the conditions that are
necessary for child sexual abuse to occur. In 1984, Dr. David
Finkelhor published one of our most important books on child sexual
abuse. In Child Sexual Abuse: A New Theory and Research[ he defined a
functional model for understanding how child sexual abuse occurs.
According to Finkelhor, there are four conditions that must be met
before sexual abuse can or will occur.
1.The potential molester had to
have some motivation to abuse the child sexually. (Either because of
a preference for sex with children or a willingness to go beyond
appropriate relationship boundaries between adults and children.)
2.The potential molester had to
overcome any reticence or inhibitions about acting on these sexual
feelings for children.
3.The potential molester had to
overcome environmental and other external obstacles to committing the
sexual abuse.
4.The potential molester had to
overcome or chip away at any resistance that the child exhibited.
The model was developed based on a
great deal of research about how sexual abuse occurs.For our
purposes, the important thing to remember is that all four elements
or conditions need to be present for child sexual abuse to occur.
Therefore, interruptions in any one these four conditions can
interrupt and, in fact, will derail the abuse process.
The only persons who can do
something about the first and second conditions are the potential
molesters. They alone can identify their inappropriate desires for
sexual activity with children and therefore take the necessary
actions to stop themselves from acting out. This means that the rest
of us must look to ways to stop the process by concentrating on the
third and fourth conditions.
Environmental and other external obstacles
In the Protecting God’s
Children™ for Adults program we address several ways that we can
influence whether a molester has the opportunity to abuse a child.
The first three steps of the Plan for protecting children deal
directly with ways to place environmental and other external
obstacles in the path of a potential molester.
Step 1 Know the warning signs.
Learning about the behavioral signs
that are indicators of someone who is a potential risk of harm to
children helps us recognize and intervene in risky situations. By
learning these signs and then taking the time to observe the people
around us who interact with children and young people, we can
interrupt the grooming process and protect a child from abuse.
Step 2 Control Access
Initiating a comprehensive
screening process for anyone who wants to work with our children and
young people is a key factor in weeding out those with less than
wholesome intentions.
Step 3 Monitor all Programs
Establishing comprehensive,
effective monitoring guidelines for all programs involving children
and youth—and then following the guidelines without fail can go
a long way toward assuring all involved that the environment is safe.
We must learn the warning signs and
pay attention to those around us when they are interacting with
children and also be willing to intervene if something doesn’t
quite seem right. We must establish and follow the recommended
guidelines for screening the staff and volunteers who work with our
children. We must adopt and implement monitoring programs and
guidelines for all activities involving children.
If we implement these three steps
into our lives and our environments, we will create obstacles for
would-be child molesters. It is up to us to follow through with this
objective and be rigorous with those around us and with ourselves.
Overcoming the child’s resistance
For about the last 20 to 25 years,
professionals in the field of child sexual abuse prevention have been
teaching children to resist the overtures of someone who is a
potential molester. We have taught children that they have the right
to say “no.” We have encouraged them to get away from the
person who makes them feel uncomfortable or confused as quickly as
possible and to tell someone what happened—someone that they trust.
In this way, we have begun to build
up children’s ability to resist the overtures of child
molesters. In a recent study of the marked decline of child sexual
abuse cases over an eight year period from 1992 to 2000, researchers
concluded, once they considered a number of possible and plausible
explanations, that the educational work we are doing with children is
paying off.
There are other factors that point
to an actual decline in child sexual abuse such as an increase in the
number of offenders being apprehended, convicted, and incarcerated.
In addition, there was a marked decrease in the number of children
running away from home and a decline in the number of teen
pregnancies during the same time frame.
Research reminds us that teaching
children how to resist the overtures of a potential molester requires
repetition and reinforcement. Children and young people need to know
the rules and they need to hear them over and over and over again so
that the rules become part of a thought process. This is done the
same way we teach the rules about looking both ways before crossing
the street and the danger of getting too close to an open flame.
Empowering children to speak up and
resist the overtures of potential molesters can stop a child molester
in his or her tracks. Molesters who fear being caught—and being
labeled a molester—may decide it is not worth the risk and back off.
Conclusion
It is very hard to prove a negative
and yet, to be sure that children are safer we would need to prove
that abuse did not happen. However, if we look at the preconditions
that Dr. Finkelhor defined and we focus our attention on the
conditions that we can affect, our efforts to educate ourselves and
empower our children result in a world where children are safer, and
that is the primary goal for each of us. |
