Plans to protect children from peadolphiles........dvd for 6yrs and above, what do we all think?

[haychEebeeJeebees]

In the news today, the government have released plans to protect children from predators/peadophiles. Within their plans, they have detailed a behavioural analysis unit to try to determine how a peadophile thinks (too little too late imo, surley this type of work has been carried out everytime a peadophile is caught?).
Also they are planning to release a cartoon dvd which is aimed at the children to show them how to spot a child predator. Im all for this and will be definitely letting my dc watch it. Although it is disturbing at times apparently. Its such a shame that we have to show our dc the dangers in the world in order to protect them.
What do the rest of you think?

Can i just add, my dd2 is scared of everything its her character. dd1 is a different kettle of fish. She needs to know about danger otherwise she will walk right into it. Its about each individual child.

I think it is more about each parents individual idea about their children

sounds liek you've got yuors labelled and boxed pretty early on

being fearless shouldn't mean you have to force her to be afraid in order to make yourself feel at ease.

oh another excellent post

Charlie Say's.....Anyone remember them? I agree wholeheartedly that folk are getting a tad het up about "stranger danger". I have told my ds that his privates are not to be touched by anyone but him and that there is never a secret he can't tell me, and I'll do the same with Dd when she is old enough. If someone comes up to my son and speaks to him in the street, I don't automatically think this is someone out to get him. I won't be showing him a DVD which in all liklyhood will scare him. I'll keep the lines of communication open with him, and if he has a worry, he can let me know. Oh, and there was a case here recently which my dp, a Community Warden, delt with when two girls came up and said they had been "approached" by a man. Turned out this poor guy had genuinly been looking for his dog and asked if they had seen it, they ran away and got themselves in a right paddy. He ended up having to go to the police station incase it had been reported as it was completely inocent. This is what happens when people over-react and scare kids, imo.

why thank you Enid.

Joekate - thankfully the girls spoke to your Dp. if they had stopped at the local pub or football pitch the poor man could have had the hell kicked out of him for simply speaking to two young girls.

Turned out he had stopped in his car....with wife and kids in the back!! Girls so freeked they didn't even notice! I don't want my kids to be that scared of the outside world. I'm a product of the 70's (summers spent cycling and having giant games of hide and seek in the street all day without an adult in sight) and I don't personally think there had been a marked increase in attackers, just an increase in sensational journalism/broadcasting so we get to the stage that if anyone even looks at our kids we take a feege.

Joekate: there isn't and hasn't been any increase in attacks by strangers for about 100 years. The majority of harm done to children remains harm done by family or close associates - and there is a possibility that there's not much more of that than there was, just more reporting of it. MOST adults are not a danger to children.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I wouldn't show my ds a video of this nature.

I agree with recent posters. There are no more paedophiles around now then there ever were, per capita, and telling impressionable children that men are dangerous can have untold repercussions.

My father's dp is a criminal lawyer and comes across this all the time. Children citing 'sexual abuse' at (in large part) perfectly innocent men who have for some reason slighted them. Think of the Salem Witch Trials of the 17th C. Kids thrive on attention. It sets a dangerous precedent to empower them with the knowledge of sex offenders. Surely the softly, softly, intuitive message is a better educational approach to the problem?

I know that sexual abuse occurs, and frequently. But most children will not experience it, so to expose all children to the knowledge of the danger is unwise, imo.

However, I'm guessing that the government have some concerns about internet grooming, and older children should certainly be made aware of that.

But six year olds? No ... not for me.

that's interesting evil. my bf and father are also crim barristers who do fair amount of child sex abuse cases. I'd always got the impresssion from them that 'attention -seeking' argument was simply the standard defence in abuse cases.. and not necessarily a reflection of the actual facts.
dangerous to empower..

I think it's a terrible idea to convince children that all strangers are dangerous until proven innocent. And I think men get a raw deal these days - how many would dare try to help out a lost child in the current climate of fear and suspicion roused just by their gender? It must be highly unpleasant for the millions of normal, decent, caring men out there to be regarded as a potential paedophile and hardly does much for the kindly bonds of society.

I'm not sure watching any DVD would help much, either. Most determined paedophiles are very skilled at presenting themselves convincingly and if the scenario doesn't play out exactly as you've 'trained' your DC to expect ref. the script of the DVD, then they would likely be as vulnerable as any child who hadn't been 'prepared', while liable to misunderstand normal, friendly contact.

Other than making the obvious, sensible warnings and safeguards, which should not IMO be made a huge great big deal of, I don't think we should be making children generally fearful and suspicious and growing up thinking that adults are generally untrustworthy.

in general agree, stranger danger needs to be taught but not obsessed about.
Most important thing is, as others have said so well, self-confidence about who can touch you,and where. And trying to get across the idea of no secrets with grown-ups..

Often think that we obsess on this (stranger abuse) because the statistical reality (family members) is just too awful for us to bear.

www.kidshield.eu

In total 16% of children aged under 16 experienced sexual abuse during childhood. 11% of this was contact abuse and 6% was non-contact.
(Cawson et al., 2000, Child Maltreatment in the UK: A Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect, NSPCC, p.85)

1% of children under 16 experienced sexual abuse by a parent or carer and another 3% by another relative during childhood.
(Cawson et al., 2000, Child Maltreatment in the UK: A Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect, NSPCC, p.85)

11% of children under 16 experienced sexual abuse during childhood by people known but unrelated to them.
(Cawson et al., 2000, Child Maltreatment in the UK: A Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect, NSPCC, p.86)

5% of children under 16 experienced sexual abuse during childhood by an adult stranger or someone they had just met.
(Cawson et al., 2000, Child Maltreatment in the UK: A Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect, NSPCC, p.86)

Three-quarters (72%) of sexually abused children did not tell anyone about the abuse at the time. 27% told someone later. Around a third (31%) still had not told anyone about their experience(s) by early adulthood.
(Cawson et al., 2000, Child Maltreatment in the UK: A Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect, NSPCC, p.83)

sorry haycheebeejeebees
, good post, meant to include 'people known to them' as well as family members in the statistical bit. I was in a rush and meaning 'as opposed to strangers'.

And these figures are surprising, so thanks. I'd thought the figure for strangers was lower than this, and the family members figure was higher.

all the figures are pretty horrific though arent' they?

This reminds me of that fantastic Brass eye sketch about Paedo-geddon or whatever it was... 'I'm talking nonce-sense'... anyone else remember that? I hope I didn't make it up.
Point being to get a sense of perspective about, ahem, paedos. And don't terrify your kids!

From home office
Sex Offending against children : understanding the risk (1998)

Is Just the concluding part, but shows the general jist of risk and findings of study.

6. Conclusion This review has identified the following key points about sex offending against children: l Judging by the numbers of cases reported to the police, sex offending against children may be even more prevalent than population surveys have indicated previously; l The majority of offenders offend in the home and abuse children who are members of their family or who are known to them; l The consequences of being abused in the home by a known and trusted adult are often more serious than being abused by a stranger; l Adolescent offenders probably account for up to a third of all sex crime. Multiagency work needs to identify and treat those young offenders (and their victims)who are most at risk of continuing to offend; l About 20% of those who are convicted of sexual offences against children are reconvicted for similar offences; the RRASOR and SACJ risk assessment i n s t ruments can be used to identify offenders who re p resent a higher risk of re - o ffending; l Multi-agency work is needed to achieve the goal of managing the risk of sex offenders in the community. By its nature, sexual offending against children does not thrive in the light. In spite of this, we actually know a great deal about the men who sexually abuse children, and the ways in which they carry it out. There are risks, however, in focusing too intensely on those offenders who have come into the system, either through convictions or through social service mechanisms. By this time, victims have been created, and at best further prevention is secondary to the damage that has already been caused. In any case, these known offenders represent only the minority on whom the light has fallen.

If the problem of child sexual abuse is to be addressed effectively, attention may
need to shift to the much larger canvas of primary prevention. For example, there
is some evidence to show that the lessons of good school programmes designed to
instruct children (and parents) about how to avoid sexual abuse, and to encourage
them to report it when it happens, can be put into practice by children (Finkelhor
et al., 1995). More generally, organisations that deal with children, such as schools,
sports teams, religious orders, clubs and the like, must be confident of their
procedures for vetting adults who work for them.
Children need to be educated on
how to respond to adults who seek to abuse them, and on what they should do if
friends tell them ?secrets? about abuse they are experiencing. Potential abusers
themselves should be able to obtain help before they offend, or in the early stages
of their offending. There is no reason at all why the police should not be
fundamental contributors to these types of preventative programmes.

hadn't thought about priming ds on what to do if a friend says he's beingn abused..

Haychee, your figures are alarmist and somewhat misleading, I was so shocked by them I looked up the study, the definitions and lack of them make interesting reading. You say:

"In total 16% of children aged under 16 experienced sexual abuse during childhood. 11% of this was contact abuse and 6% was non-contact. (Cawson et al., 2000, Child Maltreatment in the UK: A Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect, NSPCC, p.85)"

In the study:
..."respondents were asked to report on specific sexual acts they had experienced when they were under 16 years old... the authors classified 11 per cent of the sample as having experienced sexual abuse, although only 6 per cent of the sample assessed themselves as having being sexually abused."

That study counts indecent exposure as sexual abuse! Like many of us who were born in the 70s I was flashed as a child and thought it a most interesting experience, I was in no way threatened and it would never have occurred to me that I had been a "victim of abuse". I did not tell my parents because I knew they would make an unnessessary fuss. 20 years later I think that I still wouldn't.

Inappropriate groping, as has happened me several times as a teenager at disco, and even family parties is also unacceptable, rude and annoying. As a one off it is not really abuse though.

Personally, I was in no way sexually active before 16, but I know that friends who were did not think of themselves as being abused either. We really need to distinguish between pederasty (any erotic practices between adults and adolescents)and paedophilia, which involves prepubescents. Not that the former is to be encouraged but a lot of the "statistics" on paedophilia are misleading because they can include consensual behaviour of adolescents.

"Adolescent offenders probably account for up to a third of all sex crime. Multiagency
work needs to identify and treat those young offenders (and their victims)who are most at risk of continuing to offend"

Of course they do. They are young and stupid. As far as I know it is also technically a crime if an adolescent 16 yr old boy fools around with a consensual adolescent 15 year old girl.

I think what its saying is primary prevention is the way forward.

We all have different ways of teaching our children to be safe, and what is right to expect of another adult. I am still of the opinion that my dd should watch the cartoon dvd. I know her, and i know she wont be scared of all adults from having watched it, another child may become terrified of all men/strangers, and that certainly isnt what i want to encourage or support.

I dont want to come across here as a mother who obsesses about these types of risks. But i wanted to bring about the topic so as to inform you all of the availablity of the dvd (if suitable for your child) and or to bring about discussion so we can all be better informed and prepared as to how best to tackle the issue with our own dc.

My eldest is 7, and issues arising for me now, where she wants more independence and freedom to play out with friends. Up unitl this time i have not had to discuss much with her along these lines, so i suppose i was also looking from you all here who have used various methods in teaching your dc.
Like for instance the idea someone mentioned about using family passwords for a third person to collect them from somewhere, ie they only go with another adult if they know the password.
And how you all go about teaching your dc about appropriate touches etc.

My dd is a very very confident feisty little madam dd2 is far different much more insecure and wary. I worry about dd1 as she will talk to anybody and doesnt appear to listen to my warnings about strangers, so either im going about it in the wrong way or i need her to watch the dvd to back my warnings up.

Back to the OP - under no circumstances would I allow my dcs to watch a scaremongering DVD. Of course there are risks, but they are really trivial compared to the danger of e.g. road accidents. The chance of my child being abused or abducted is so tiny I won't waste my time worrying about it.

I get what your saying upwind. They are the only figures i could find. I too considered that fact.

sprogger
There is a link lower down where some clips of it are shown.