What Every Parent Should Know About Pedophiles

Sexual abuse may be number one on most parents' Fear Top 10 lists, but millions of children are living through pedophile-imposed nightmares right now. Are pedophiles really that mysterious? Is there really nothing you can do to keep your children safe? Sexual predators targeting children would love you to buy into that myth. Fortunately, these “monsters” are usually pretty predictable.

An Introduction To Child Sexual Abuse

All parents have powerful tools to protect their children from sexual abuse. Today, we will see how a pedophile chooses their victims, how abuse progresses, and what possible signs of child sexual abuse are. There are an awful lot of myths out there about sexual abuse, and it is important not to believe any of them.

I can give you great insights into pedophiles' strategies, and I can you a lot about how a potential or actual child victim may act too.

Today, I am a mother of two in my thirties. I finally took the step to go to therapy a few years back, was diagnosed with PTSD, and have done a lot of healing. No, I haven't forgiven my abuser and I have not forgiven those in my surroundings who must have seen but did not act either.

I'll illustrate each of the points we're going to discuss with a real-life example — parts of my own story — so you can move past theory and see what the process of grooming and victimization may look like. Details will always change, but child sexual predators are actually remarkably similar in the tactics they use.

The Prince And The Pedophile

You've seen them: Those lone, slightly unwashed men at your local park, who are staring at your children but are not looking after any little ones themselves. The older guys who pat your daughter's hair in the grocery store queue while making some sick-making comment about her beauty. And you've seen them in the news; their disgusting pictures along with details of abuse to shock you to your core.

If you think that these sentences describe the man (because in the vast majority of cases, it is a man) who is most likely to target your children, you may be putting them in danger.

Pedophiles do not usually appear as “monsters” — in fact, far too many times, they are described as upstanding citizens, community leaders, charming and nice people. Stranger assault does happen, but it is so rare that we don't even need to discuss that today. All active pedophiles who do not simply grab a child off the street and victimize them have several things in common. They are:

• Pedophiles need to have access to their victims, so engineer opportunities to be alone with the child.
• Pedophiles need to minimize the chance of being punished for their crime. Therefore, they either choose a child who is unlikely to tell, unlikely to be believed, or a child who has “care givers” that do not care that their child is sexually abused. (Yes, it happens. In fact, the abuser may be a parent.)
• Pedophiles need your trust or your consent. If you are reading this, I don't think it is possible that you fall into the second horrific category. Loving, responsible parents need to trust a predator in order for him to succeed. Examples of people who trust may be relatives, teachers, a new partner, sports coaches, or family friends. 

• The Tactics That Help Pedophiles Select Their Victims

How do pedophiles select their victims? How do they gain your trust? Why do so many children remain silent about the sexual abuse they endure? The tactical steps a sexual predator would take are going to look something like this:

1. Create a non-suspicious situation in which they are in frequent contact with children, so they can select a victim, or simply look out for an appealing child. Some pedophiles only target specific genders, ages, or have preferences for certain appearances. Others do not want much, and the very innocence of the child is quite enough to get them off.

2. Once an individual potential victim has been selected, the predator will start off with low-risk moves to test if this particular child and their family are a good match — in other words, to test if abuse would go unpunished. Simultaneously, the pedophile will work on gaining the care givers' trust.

3. If the situation is judged to be favorable for the predator, he can then move on to actual abuse, perhaps building its severity up over time. More about this later.

The man who victimized me was a stranger when he chose me as his best potential target from a group of young girls — he spotted me at an outdoor summer party my school friend's mom had organized for the whole class. He was attending a birthday party at the neighbor's house, and took the opportunity to strike up a conversation with me.

During that first conversation, the predator got some extremely valuable information. He found out that my father had passed away and I lived alone with my mom, that she worked long hours at her job, and I kept snakes as pets. He also found out that I was feeling bad about my multi-ethnic background. Amazingly, several of my school friends commented that he creeped them out and may be a “child molester”. Nothing wrong with their intuition. These are signs to pay attention to.

Several weeks later, he showed up at my doorstep. My mother opened the door, and he gave her a book about snakes. He explained that he met me at the party, and had obtained my address from my friend's parents. My mom didn't see what my friends saw. She saw a nice and charming man. Their first conversation lasted for hours. He became the “love of her life” very soon after that. Abusers are actually often step fathers, so this story is not unique by any means.

The Sexual Abuse, The Child And Her Family

Sexual abuse is much more common than you may think.

The same study showed that more than one in three young adults sexually abused as child did not tell anyone about it at the time. Why is it that this happens so often? There are many reasons a child may not tell care givers about what is happening.

They include:

• The child thinks thinks the abuse is her/his fault, and may feel guilty for betraying “the secret” s/he was sworn to keep.
• The child does not know the abuse is wrong, or does not have the words to describe what happened or is happening.
• The predator threatens to kill the child or their family if they tell, or prevents the child from telling by warning about some other negative outcome.
• The child is convinced s/he will not be believed if they do tell, often unfortunately with good reason.
• The child thinks others will blame him/her for the abuse.
• The child wants to protect her/his parents from the hurt that may be caused if the abuse becomes known, is afraid s/he will be taken into care.

In my case, the sexual predator started picking me up from school and taking me to his apartment. He was “doing my working mother a great favor” and was such a wonderful man for doing such a selfless thing. He started with over-the-top touch that was not sexual, like many pedophiles.

At the same time, he attempted to complicate my relationship with my mother. He “shared” things my mother had told him about me, and I was very hurt. Some of them were certainly things she had actually said to him, but he probably made up some of it too. I felt betrayed and was sure my mother didn't love me. He was different though, he said: he “understood me”. This is a thing many pedophiles throughout the world echo in chorus.

The first time he touched me sexually, while clothed, I wasn't sure what happened. I was 11 after all, and needed time to process that. The second time, he went further; he took my virginity, by force. He told me that he knew I wanted it, since I hadn't said no the last time he touched me. I was 11, and thought he had a point. My mother would be devastated to find out about that, he of all people quickly let me know. He had a point. She would not believe me anyway. Once again, he had a point.

Symptoms Of Sexual Abuse

You cannot prevent your child from being a potential target, but will hopefully prevent any abuse from occurring by recognizing the grooming process and kicking the predator out of your child's life before sexual abuse occurred.

If you find yourself in the uncomfortable position of evaluating the possibility that your child is being abused, you may think you are clueless about the signs. You are not. They are quite obvious. You already know about the signs the pedophile may give off, but the child's symptoms may include:

• A change in behavior, like being withdrawn, depressed, or sad.
• A change in the way your child wants to dress herself or himself, like baggy clothes that cover the body.
• A change in behavior toward the abuser, like not wanting to be around him any more.
• Not doing very well in school.
• Talking about sex or displaying sexual behavior.
• Pain, bleeding, sexually transmitted infections, or pregnancy.
• One more very important sign is your child (or another child you know, of course) telling you about sexual abuse.

Let one thing be clear — there is a much, much higher chance of a child who is being sexually abused not telling, than a child making up sexual abuse that did not happen. Children almost never invent sexual abuse, and would not know the details anyway.

If any child tells you about sexual abuse, staying calm and listening is the best response. Do not panic. Make sure to tell the child that it was not their fault, and that you are proud of them for taking the brave step of telling. Tell her or him you will help them be safe.

Report the abuse to the police, and make sure that the abuser has no further access to the child at all. Seek out therapy. All of this should happen after you first give the child as much time as they need to tell their story. 

Preventing Sexual Abuse

Relying on children — from toddler to teenager — to prevent sexual abuse is just about the worst strategy a parent can employ to keep their kids safe from pedophiles. It is important to remember that sexual abuse is never the child's fault, and the responsibility of preventing it does not lie with the child themselves. Yet, educating our kids about sexual abuse can contribute to their safety. What should you tell your children about sexual abuse? 

Preventing sexual abuse starts with providing a loving and healthy family environment, in which your children are not afraid to tell you anything and feel safe standing up to any adult — including you. In my personal opinion, teaching children that trusting authority figures blindly can be dangerous is a very important step. “Listen to your teacher,” or “Do what the babysitter says” can be orders with tragic consequences.

Convicted sexual predators have themselves said that children who are ignorant about sex and their body are easy victims. It is crucial to teach our children the correct names for their body parts and those of the opposite sex — vulva, vagina, penis, scrotum, nipples and anus instead of “down there” or cutesy names. Then, teach your kids that:

• Nobody should ask you to take your clothes off.
• Nobody should take their clothes off and make you watch.
• Nobody should touch your vulva, vagina, penis, scrotum, anus, nipples, or should touch other parts of your body while you are naked.
• Nobody should ask you to touch their body in a way that makes you uncomfortable.

Not all sexual abuse involves touching; some pedophiles take pictures of naked children without ever touching them and this too is abuse. While people have different views on touch, I believe that parents should never force their children to hug a grandparent they don't want to hug, or to allow their hair to be stroked by a stranger, or any other such examples of “innocent touch” that makes a child feel uncomfortable. Having autonomy over their body teaches a child to honor and develop their intuition.

Do mention that there may be exceptions in which private parts need to be examined by medical professionals, but explain that you yourself will always be there when that happens. Younger kids may need help wiping after going potty. They are not too young to be taught the difference between appropriate and inappropriate touch.

Child safety expert Gavin de Becker has a great many really useful tips on keeping children safe, and I highly recommend his books Protecting The Gift and The Gift Of Fear. Protecting The Gift specifically covers the topic of keeping children safe from all kinds of violence, including sexual abuse. In this book, de Becker advises parents to teach their children to tell an abuser “stop, or I will tell”. This is wonderful advice that will get many pedophiles to stop, because they are under the impression the child will not tell. The child should tell, of course.

Finally, it is very, very important that your children realize and feel (through your actions) that you will always listen to them, and that you are strong enough to hear bad news. This will increase the chance that your child will tell you if he or she is sexually abused.