How to Protect Kids from Child Molesters 1 How to Protect Kids from Child Molesters 2 Back of title page Copyright © 2007 by Lauren Ayers All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Appledorn Publishers, Guilderland, New York. Dear Abby’s column reprinted with permission pending of Dear Abby, Creators and Los Angeles Times Syndicates. Excerpt from Conversations with a Pedophile by John Smith permissions pending Library of Congress Catalogue number 0000000000 ISBN: 0000000000 Cover design by John Smith Cover photograph by John Smith Manufactured in the United States of America How to Protect Kids from Child Molesters 3 Let my little light shine How to Protect Kids from Child Molesters 4 Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Part 1: The Problem Chapter One: Empty Streets The way kids live – Kids as crime targets – Parental confusion Chapter Two: Crisis of Confidence: American Parents at a Loss How parents lost their sense of control over their children’s safety – Blurring the line to hide the crime – Parents under pressure – Have kids have lost faith in their parents’ ability to protect them? – Kids don’t tell their parents about sexual crimes – What determines whether children disclose? – False accusations – Parental ambivalence Chapter Three: American Institutions Under Attack Public and private schools – Religious institutions – Recreational organizations Part 2: The Challenge to Child Protection Chapter Four: The Sexual Con Man Sexual predators as con men - Why pornography is important in child sexual crimes - Are child molesters mentally ill? – How predators con people who control access to kids – Are predators solo criminals? – Is there a pedophiliac political program? - Can sexual predators reform? Chapter Five: Babies and Preschoolers – Special Problems in Protecting Little Kids Sexual assault within the family – Sexual abuse by juveniles – The future for victimized preschoolers Chapter Six: Silent Victims: School-Aged Children Six to Twelve How sexual crimes occur in middle childhood – Master needs of middle-aged kids – Social development in middle childhood – Learning behavioral control – Psychological control mechanisms How to Protect Kids from Child Molesters 5 Chapter Seven: Protecting Kids in Cyberspace The separate worlds of children and parents – How kids use the internet at different ages – Kids Internet habits – Growing up on the Internet – Kids don’t disclose exposure to Internet crime – Kids give out personal information – Using the Internet changes the way kids relate to others - Kids sexual practices – Pornography – Cyberdiscipline and Cyberguidance Chapter Eight: How Abuse Prevention Programs Increase the Risk to Kids Do abuse prevention programs prevent abuse? – Mistaken premises – Kids may not have caused the problem, but the solution is up to them – Kids can’t say no – A child doesn’t have the right to his own body – Adult-child power differences – Most children deal with sexual threats alone – Locus of control – Transfer of training – Teaching facts and teaching judgment – Other types of child protection initiatives – Are there more fruitful approaches to the protection of children? Part 3: Face to Face with Sexual Crimes Against Kids Chapter Nine: How to Deal with Crimes Against Kids Talking it over with the accused – False Accusations – Abuse reports during custody conflicts – Youthful predators Chapter Ten: Recognizing the Predator’s Con A sexual con man arranges the context and sets the stage for his exploitation – A sexual con man heightens peer pressure - A sexual con man tries to get people to act automatically – Sexual con men work to develop dependency – A sexual con man continuously cons people - A sexual con man learns to get between kids and their parents - A sexual con man always defends himself Chapter Eleven: Don’t Act Like a Child Molester Social etiquette in dealing with children – Touching – Nudity, isolation and the two-deep rule – Sexual comments – Secrets – Dealing with rude adult behavior – Kissing kids – When other parents don’t share the concerns – Problems situations – Identified sexual predators as neighbors Part 4: Changing the Climate to End the Plague Chapter Twelve: What Parents Must Do First, trust your insides – Parents are the best defense against criminals – Strengthen the bond with kids so that predators can’t break it – Check out How to Protect Kids from Child Molesters 6 parental self-esteem – Divorced adults and low self-esteem – Increased parental cynicism – Second, teach children safe behavior – What parents need to teach themselves – What parents need to teach children – The need for cyberguidance – Develop an abuse action plan – Helping kids deal with emotions – Third, talk with children – Why kids don’t talk to parents – Fourth, take stock of kids’ lives – Look at your child – Think like a criminal – Become an objective observer – Abductions by strangers – Get to know the children who know your child – Be vocal about how you would handle an abuse disclosure – Don’t recycle offenders – Examine your own vulnerabilities – Use sex offender registries but don’t bet on them Chapter Thirteen: What Teachers Need to Do Mandated reporting – Avoid reliance on abuse prevention programs – Crime prevention programs for kids – Helping kids who abuse other kids – School administrative issues – School-related venues and activities – District and school policy must be secondary to the penal code – Allegations against faculty or staff Chapter Fourteen: What Clergy Need to Do The costs of innocence – Response of the congregation – Why houses of worship are uniquely vulnerable – How to protect kids in religious organizations – Two deep – No secrets – Children in need – Volunteer selection and screening – Training and continuing education – Will these types of policies alter the practices of religious organizations? – Reporting policies – Spiritual issues Chapter Fifteen: What Recreational Directors Need to Do Screening, training and the supervision of workers – Effective child protection policies – How activities are organized Chapter Sixteen: The Future for Children Accepting human immaturity – The ever-changing face of sexual crime – Sex crimes as an extension of the social influence process Endnotes How to Protect Kids from Child Molesters 7 Acknowledgements There are so many people who helped this book come into being, and their willingness to take time to help is deeply appreciated. Ed Girtler has spent a lifetime trying to protect the vulnerable, and his insights and wisdom were invaluable. Elizabeth Bell’s good editing helped to clarify the book’s message and to make it readable. The folks at the Guilderland Public Library went above and beyond to help in finding materials and references. Andrew Ayers spent many hours exploring the premises of this book and offering help in evaluating them. Nancy Andres and Sherry Hawley helped the process along with their comments and suggestions, as did Scott and Teresa Muller. Dave and Lorene Bonn listened and helped with their editing and publishing insights. Susan Filipp helped out with her wisdom and experience, as did Lauri Plattner. Susan Blabey, Debra Wing and Jim Hiskok were all good enough to offer their help. The encouragement and help of Kathryn Sickler helped to get past the tough spots, as did the support from Liz Roberts, Emily Ayers and Steve and Sunitha Ayers. We deeply appreciate the help of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Prayer Band as well. Finally, this book is dedicated to the memories of Amber Hagerman, Jacob Wetterling, Polly Klaus, Megan Kanka, Adam Walsh and Etan Patz, youngsters lost in the war for children’s safety. How to Protect Kids from Child Molesters 8 Introduction The FBI predicts that one in five girls and one in ten boys will be sexually molested in their youth. Most of the time the molester will be somebody quite well known to the child’s mother, and the youngster will say nothing until perhaps the far away moment in adulthood, when she says, How could you not have known? But it doesn’t have to be this way. There is nothing unavoidable about child victimization. The current epidemic of sexual crimes against children results from passivity and defeatism and a belief that modern society cannot avoid sexual attacks on kids. In any society, traffic patterns reflect a consensus on what is an acceptable accident rate, and people drive more or less carefully based on how much automotive damage they believe is reasonable. In the same way, crime rates are a reflection of how much felonious damage people are willing to tolerate. Law enforcement is a last resort that tries to rebalance the forces of crime and social stability. Because crimes against children are largely invisible, they have been tolerated at relatively high rates, with damage to kids that may not become apparent until adulthood. It’s time that this changed, and change is not hard to come by in a nation that has proven itself capable of spectacular feats. But it will take an act of will on the part of every adult who cares about kids, and a willingness to change attitudes and learn new social behaviors, because the current ones favor sexual predators. Where to start? We need to know more about parents and children, and why they act as they do. It isn’t necessary to arrest and convict every sex offender to keep kids safe. Instead, we need to create a climate that is not conducive to child victimization. We need to rearrange the setting and change the subtle balances in the culture. We can do this very quickly, in a matter of months, if we understand the reorganization that needs to happen. We must begin by understanding children’s lives and how they have changed, How to Protect Kids from Child Molesters 9 because right now children deal with the problem of child abuse on their own, largely without help from adults. In part 1 we begin with a discussion of the vast cultural changes that have resulted from the epidemic of sexual crimes against children, and then we look at the impact on parents of chronic fear and inadequacy in protecting kids.