I didn't realise that about the NSPCC wording as I have never looked. I had wrongly assumed that an organisation like them had got it right. I will no longer make such assumptions.
It is so worrying. Is it only abuse if the child is frightened and worried?
ChickenonaMug
I find this definition of sexual abuse taught to children to be harmful and dangerous.
Not only does it mean that a child may not realise that sexual abuse is happening to her (or him) as she has never felt frightened by the abuse due to grooming but also the definition has the potential to make an abused child feel ashamed that she did not react to the sexual abuse with the expected fear or worry. It risks a child concluding that either her abuser is right and and she wanted the abuse to happen and that she liked and consented to it.
Alternatively it risks the abused child feeling that she is stupid or abnormal as clearly other children would have recognised the abuse enough to have responded appropriately with fear or worry. A child who feels ashamed is much less likely to disclose what is happening to herself. It is a very harmful definition to give children and it is a definition which predators can use to their advantage.
Thats exactly as I felt as a child. Why was the stuff done to me sexual abuse when at the time it did not frighten or worry me? Why did that part of the definition need to be there?
Of course some children will use this to rationalise and not get help when they could. I've been that child. When sat in a police station in a special kids room and having a lady take notes on what you say. The questions she asked were similar about being afraid, hurt, upset, frightened?
I did not disclose the abuse, my older sister did. That's how I ended up in that room with a police lady aged 10.
But them saying does it make you feel frightened and worried is not the point. It may not do so at the time but my goodness, it makes me wake in a cold sweat now or I can't sleep because I'm scared now. Just because I didn't always see it as abuse then and just because it did not always make me frightened and worried and upset all the time then, does not mean that it was not child sex abuse. At the time my abusers temper, my sad older sister and the beatings my toddler sister got from him worried and frightened me far more than what he did to me.
I was 13 when I allowed myself to think about it properly and I sunk into my first depression. My level of denial was so high. I had purposely tried to forget the worse.
As an adult I replayed the same thing again with my abusive husband. I didn't see the red flags. I minimised and lived in a state of fear, obligation and guilt. The exact things I had learnt as a child. I covered for him like I had learnt to do as a child.
Thats why the NSPCC definition is so dangerous. The putting the onus on what the abused child is feeling is ridiculous. My step dad was charming, fun and generous, he was also a serial sexual predator. He did not always frighten and worry me even though he was sexually abusing me.