Helping Your Child Recover from Sexual Abuse
From a parent point of view I ask the question of how you help your child heal from sexual abuse. I have chosen this because I am a parent that is going through trying to help my child heal from her abuse. As I research the Ashford library, Pro Quest, Goggle, and information from the Women’s Center of Houston. I have found that parents play an important role in helping our children recover from sexual abuse. Just as helping those with school work, trying to tie their shoes, picking out their clothes for the day, or even helping them be successful in the future.
It’s our duty as parents to give them support, belief, and protection when they have been through a shocking experience. How do you help your child heal from sexual abuse? Caren Adams and Jennifer Fay, University of Washington Press, 1987, ask the same question. Put yourself in parent’s shoes that are going or has been through what we fear each and everyday. Can you wonder how it feel if your child comes to you and says “it has happen to me”?
What do you do after the shocking news? The nightmare of coping with the sexual abuse of your child begins. Will your child get over it? Will your child grow up to be an offender? What do you do in the days to come? Will this affect your child’s life? Parents of child victims are all over the world are asking this question right now. Hundreds of children are being sexual abuse every year.
America reports that every 1 in 4 girls will be sexually abused by thee age of 18, and 1 out of 8 boys will be also. There are many different types of abuse that can occur, but the single most traumatizing type is sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is unwanted sexual activity forced on a person by another through coercion or threats. Now no one wants their child to go through a traumatic experience growing up. So when something like this happens to your child the question still stands. How do you help your child heal from sexual abuse?
This question may be hard to answer if you never been in this situation before. I didn’t know how to go about to even find ways on healing for my daughter. Her sexual abuse happen when she was 14 year old. I’ve called several hotlines to speak to social workers, of the Child Assessment Center. I just need the first step in talking to someone about my situation in getting some help for my daughter.
The social worker was kind enough to tell me that she might need to go to counseling before it gets too late in the future. Counseling for children and teens that has been sexual abuse is good this will help your child to be able to talk about the abuse that he or she has experienced. It really starts from the beginning, when the first thing you need to do is separate your natural reaction to the horrible news from the disbelief of your child. Feeling of disbelief is called denial, and most of the time they wish that all of this is a bad dream.
Children hide their feeling from parents and other people around them. Our role is to support our child/children in recovery through reassurance, safety, and love. A parent of a victim of sexual abuse told me that in order to heal from the pain and hurt. “We need to find a position of recover first”. From that note I realize that it take parents to be able to heal themselves as well, so that they can help their children heal.
We must tell our child/children that we believe them, we love them, I’m sorry that this happen to you, It wasn’t your fault; I will be there to take care of you. The subject on helping your child heal from sexual abuse is important because our children are our future. There is life after the abuse. The victims can become what ever they desire to be in the future and put the hurt in the past. This will allow the healing to take over the world and be successful adults.
