Friday, February 21, 2014

sex abuse education

As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I believe in sex abuse education. I've said it before but I'm going to go into more detail of why I believe it and who I think should teach it. The majority of childhood sex abuse happens by someone the child knows, a lot of times within their family. If we leave the education up to the parents, what is the child to do if it is the parent who is abusing them? The parents wont teach what to do and how to get help. That's why I believe it should be taught in schools. Not by teachers who don't know anything about sex abuse and what it can do to the child. I  believe it should be taught by a child psychologist. I think it should be in small groups, and not putting girls with boys. At most I believe there should only be 2-3 students being taught at a time. A large group would just be distracting for the children and they really wouldn't learn anything that they need to. It is important for children to know what touching from an adult or another child is appropriate and what isn't. It is also important that they know they have somewhere safe to report the abuse. We live in a society filled with naïve people. They believe this is something that should be taught at home. And I agree, a good parent would already have taught their child about things that can harm the child and how to get help. Again, I stress that most sex abuse victims get victimized by someone in either their home or a trusted position within their circle, a parent, a sibling, a grandparent, a family friend, a babysitter. There are multiple people who are trusted with children these days. The only way we can truly help prevent the abuse is to teach the kids what the abuse is. We also need to teach them how to get help so they can get help earlier than most children would without the knowledge. I think a lot of my pain could have been prevented had I known it was wrong and how to get help at an earlier age. I believe parents should also be educated on the silent cries for help. By that I mean the things kids will do subconciously to get help because they don't know how to say it out loud. I'm talking about behavioral changes, wetting the bed, different eating habits, acting out, and many others. Basically children who have never been taught about the abuse don't realize that it's wrong and wont tell anyone because of the threats they hear from the perpatrator. Deep inside them, their subconcious knows it's wrong and will show some outward signs. I beg of anyone who has children or plans to have them in the future to seek information on this subject. Parents are the first line of defense for children against any form of abuse. The more the parent knows, the more that can be taught to the child, and the more these things would be prevented or caught early on so the children can start receiving psychological help right away.

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