Growing Up Too Soon: the Need to Talk to Our Kids About Sexual Assault

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“Mommy, what is sexual assault?”

This is the question I got last Friday from my 9-year-old son. He had been in the other room when my mom was watching CNN and needless to say this phrase was used A LOT across the cable news stratosphere last week. Even though he was perfectly justified in asking this question you could have picked me up off the floor when he did. It got me thinking about how kids today are being forced to grapple with difficult issues at very young ages.

I am not new to this topic of conversation. When my children were little we talked about how each of us has a personal bubble. This is how we described a comfort zone or the distance that we preferred people keep from us. I wanted them to know that their bodies were their own and that no one should be touching them in an inappropriate way. We discussed what to do if someone did do something that made them uncomfortable. What I found so shocking was the casual way he threw out the term “sexual assault,” as though it was something that all the kids were discussing on the playground.

I decided that I should not sugarcoat it and yet I did not need to give too much detail. I know that everyone’s definition is different. I explained that parts of our bodies are private and when someone touches any of those parts without permission, they have committed sexual assault. I spoke about how it could be a stranger or someone you know and that you should NEVER be afraid to tell a parent, grandparent, or other trusted adult. He seemed content with this answer and went back to his book.

My child is lucky that he was asking this question in the hypothetical. According to the National Center for Victims of Crime, 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse. Over 90% of these children knew their abuser. Most cases are never reported. Would my children be brave enough to report if something happened to them or would they carry the secret with them for 10, 20, 30+ years? Would they know it was not their fault? Would they know that no matter what they were wearing or what they were saying that they were not “asking for it?”

If you want to have a conversation with your child or just feel that you should know more on the subject, here are some resources to look to:

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Sara
Sara is a native Long Islander who has managed to shed much of the accent, but cannot get rid of her love of a good New York bagel, the Mets, and a decent pastrami sandwich. She moved to Providence in 2001, with stops along the way living in upstate New York, Baltimore, Washington, DC, and Pittsburgh. Sara has two fantastic, funny kids – a 14-year-old daughter and an 10-year-old son – who attend Providence Public Schools. She graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Psychology and has her Masters in Social Work from the University of Maryland at Baltimore. These degrees have served her well in her career working as a fundraiser (currently as the Chief Development Officer at the Jewish Alliance of Greater RI) and in her home life negotiating détente between her kids. In her copious amounts of spare time, Sara enjoys going to a museum or the theater, reading, listening to 80s music, cooking and piling everyone in the car for a day trip. She also admits to a love of funny and occasionally sophomoric movies and has been known to recite entire scenes from Monty Python or Mel Brooks. She tries to find the humor in all things which is necessary when juggling a household with two kids and a full time job. Her attitude can be summed up by a print she saw at Frog and Toad: When life hands you lemons, try to figure out something to do with those lemons.