Learn From Sandusky: Protect Your Kids From Sexual Abuse

By Rachel Belle

Listen to Learn From Sandusky: Protect your Kids From Sexual Abuse

Now that Jerry Sandusky has been convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse, it’s a good time to think about your family and make sure you’re keeping your kids safe and looking for the warning signs of sexual abuse.

Sandusky’s adopted son, Matt, has come forward and said Jerry started to molest him when he was 8 years old. Now his birth mother is saying that she was suspicious of Jerry’s relationship with her son and says she fought the court system over having him placed in the Sandusky home. She says Sandusky’s status made him untouchable and she believes that if the court system listened to her back then, a lot of kids would have been saved from Sandusky’s abuse. So, if you’ve never talked to your kids about sexual abuse, now is as good a time as any.

“You’re asking somebody to talk about sex and kids, those are two things you don’t want to talk about, you don’t want to put those two words together in a sentence. So it’s really difficult for parents to even consider that this could happen to their kids,” says Amy Russell, deputy director of the National Child Protection Training Center. “So a lot of folks think ‘If I don’t address it, if I don’t talk about it, I’m not going to have to deal with it.’ But that just maintains this conspiracy of silence, that takes place in our society, that’s around sexual abuse.”

She says parents should stay aware of how other adults interact with their kids.

“Anytime an adult is more interested in your kid than you are, that’s a sign that something’s not okay. Looking for adults who like to take kids away for overnights, sleepovers, alone time, giving their kids privileges or gifts. Those are all some red flags that parents should just check into a little bit.”

She says parents should start talking to their kids when they’re as little as 3 years old.

“One of the things that parents can do is just be open and talk to their children about touches and bodies. Name the parts with kids, so it’s not an embarrassing or shameful thing to talk about bodies and body parts. Parents should teach children that it’s okay to say ‘no’ to touches they don’t want, that they’re uncomfortable with or that they’re not sure about.”

She says parents often put an emphasis on kids not talking to strangers, but it’s usually someone close to the family who does the abusing. Even if it’s a close friend or family member, you should always report suspicions.

“There are, in all states, protections against people if they make a report in good faith. They’re protected from any kind of retaliation and their privacy is protected. It’s always better to report suspicions of abuse than to wait until you have proof because likely, what’s happening is, that child is being abused the whole time and if there’s one child being abused by a perpetrator, it’s possible that there are other victims out there as well.”

She says parents should be wary of leaving their kids alone with just another adult, like a coach or a piano teacher, but it can be difficult to find a balance between being aware and being suspicious of every adult your kid comes into contact with.

“It’s not a paranoid type of a thing, it’s reality. When we have one out of three girls and one out of five boys who are being sexually victimized by the time they’re 18, it’s a simple fact of the society that we’re living in. We need to be making people aware.”

Some other tips for parents:

1) Teach your kids that they shouldn’t keep secrets. Teach them the difference between surprises (don’t spoil the surprise!) and keeping secrets that could be harmful to them.

2) Listen when kids talk and pay attention to their patterns. One of Sandusky’s victims told a guidance counselor that he’d been abused, but was told that Sandusky was a good person and would never do something like that.

3) Practice “two deep leadership” – always make sure there are at least two adults around a group of kids, and it shouldn’t be a couple. This applies to coaches, scout leaders etc.

4) Sports leagues should be doing background checks on coaches. Check in with your kid’s league to make sure this is happening.