We view protecting our children different....

[Leati]

So if you have chatted with me by now you realize that I am from the United States. I am frequently surprised by some of the different perspective of people here vs. there.

What originally caught my attention and brought me to the website was a news article about parents being upset of a missing child ad before a movie. Here in the United States our missing children our posted on milk cartons that are distributed at school. But in the UK people seemed to feel that there children were unnecessarily being frightened. In the United States parents are encouraged to role play "strangers with their kids." I pretend to be a stranger approaching my children with something that might attract a child like a puppy or candy. Then they react to the stranger. The theory is practice now and later your child will put those skillst to work. Like a fire or an earthquake drill.

The next difference that really shocked me was a parent stated that it was sad that children in the US had to be taught about good touches and bad. I have posted two websites related to your Britains child sexual abuse rates. The government sites shows that 12% girls had been sexually abused before 16 and 8% of boys...in the UK. And yet I have had serious arguements with mothers from the UK over educating your children about good touches and bad touches. Help me understand the how we can have such different opinions.

Pasted is a copy of the report and the website it was pulled from
"Of 2019 men and women (aged 15 years and over) interviewed as part of a MORI Survey of a nationally representative sample of Great Britain, 10% reported that they had been sexually abused before the age of 16 (12% of females; 8% of males). There was no increased risk associated with specific social class categories or area of residence. For all types of sexual abuse, the mean age of victims when first abused was significantly lower for females. Subjective reports of the effects of sexual abuse indicated that the majority (51%) felt harmed by the experience, while only 4% reported that it had improved the quality of their life. We estimate that there are over 4.5 million adults in Great Britain who were sexually abused as children, and that a potential 1,117,000 children will be sexually abused before they are 15 years of age. At least 143,000 of these will be abused within the family. The social and mental health implications are enormous, and the authors suggest that an effective intervention and prevention policy is urgently required."

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=4084825&dopt =Abstract

home.earthlink.net/~elnunes/stats.htm

Pitch in and make this one interesting. Maybe we can learn from each other.

Just out of interest, how do you teach your children about good touches and bad touches?

I knew all about stranger danger and nasty people who would do nasty things, but when it came down to it that knowledge didn't stop me being the victim of "bad touches".

In light of this my own experience, I'd be inclined not to go into any great detail with my kids, as I don't think all the theoretical knowledge in the world will do anything when a child is being pressured and/or threatened by an adult in charge.

Is there proof that teaching children the things you do in the USA prevents child abuse/missing children?

Here check out this web-site
www.goodtouchbadtouch.com/
this is the curriculum used in school.

What it teaches kids is to report it when someone touches them inappropriately. And more it teaches them what an inappropriate touch is. The program really is designed to educate kid not frighten them. Child paedfiles often start with a casual inappropriate touch to test the waters. So yes it could protect your child. And if it doesn't prevent a child from initially being abused, it can stop it from happening again.

Leati - this is a little wide off the mark, but you live in a country with a big problem regarding the ownership and use of guns, sometimes resulting in children shooting other children.

How do you deal with this or does it not affect you hugely?

Oh god I wasn't trying to say that you all go out of your way to scare the crap out of your kids! Obviously I understand that you do these things because you want to protect your children in anyway you can.

But most children know that it is inappropriate for an adult to touch them in their private places, and if, as you mentioned, it starts more innocently than that, surely the child can be drawn in before they can put their education into practice?

I don't know, and to be honest I'm not convinced. I would be interested to see reports/figures on rates of child abuse before/after this curriculum was introduced.

I have to admit that I really don't see the logic in putting children on milk cartons - I don't see how that will make a child less likely to get in a car with a stranger offering ice cream?

A cousin of mine has recently told me he was sexually abused for years by a family member. Of the two family members he had already told, their response was to let sleeping dogs lie, to keep his mouth shut. I am glad he told me so he has someone he can finally talk to.

As you pasted, it is more often then not, not strangers who abuse. Hard one to role play with your kids?? How much information is too much information? And is the role of the media effective in broadcasting these dangers, or perhaps create fear cultures, frighten or numb a child or person to dangers or the tradegies of others?

This programs tells kids who to tell. Unfortunately familys often protect other family members. I experiences sexual abuse as a child and was afraid to tell anyone. While I think older children do know it is wrong for someone to touch them...they do not always understand that is not thier fault or that they have nothing to be ashamed of. Feeling ashamed can often keep a child quiet. I think it is important for kids to understand that when someone does something inappropriate to them, it is that persons fault not thiers. And that they should tell a parent and if the parent is not responsive...then a teacher or policeman.

Missing children on milk cartons is just away to get thier pics out there. I think that children are often more aware of other children than adults are.

and the gun culture issue?

I find that abhorent yet that seems to go unaddressed.

I don't necessarily agree that 'stranger danger' isn't taught properly in the UK. I grew up in the 1980s/90s in London and it was heavily taught. We had whole assemblies at school about it, local police officers visited to talk to us about the matter, we were shown films (who remembers 'Charlie says never talk to strangers', sampled in the Prodigy track?) and we were encouraged to role play telling a stranger to go away / running away etc. They even ran kids self defence classes after school off the back of it, and it was something all school children were made strongly aware of.

Re: the good/bad touches. I agree that its important to help children understand that their body is their private space and to teach them what is inappropriate touching

Unfortunately, the sad fact is that while child abductions are pretty rare, sexual abuse perpetrated by a family member is much more common :-(

Yes our forefathers made it a constitional right to bare arms (guns). I think certain guns have a rightful place but I have to agree with most of you. United States is too gun happy. It breaks my heart when I hear another child was shot. Unfortunately, I am only one person and the majority of people would rather keep thier guns, even if it means the death of hundreds of children.

I was left under the impression from one of the parents who has lived both here and in the UK that more emphasize is put on stranger danger in the US.

To begin with, I think some parents are being naive to say that things are radically different in the UK so far as education is concerned. The vast majority of parents I know do talk to their children about inappropriate touching and behaviour -- but it's done on a personal level geared towards the child not as a standard programme taught in schools. I think it's the idea of ranks of children in school being taught "good touch, bad touch" as if it were a times table that freaks people out rather (I know that's not how it actually works, but mental images are hard to shake, and I was rather at the idea of a "Good Touch / Bad Touch Coloring Book" myself). And stranger danger and appropriate behaviour has been consistently taught in UK schools, at least since I was in primary school which was a long time ago now.

The study you quote was from 1985, twenty-two years ago. And it was interviews with adults, so based on childhoods in (mostly) the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Okay, maybe still relevant (although a lot has changed in education and parental attitudes since then).

But look at equivalent studies in the US -- for example, Finkelhor, D., Hotaling, G., Lewis, I.A., & Smith, C., (1990). Sexual abuse in a national survey of adult men and women: prevalence, characteristics, and risk factors. Child Abuse & Neglect, 14, 19-28, which found that 27% of the females and 16% of the males disclosed a history of childhood sexual abuse.

I also remember watching an episode of Oprah (I don't normally watch it, honest, but I was home sick) where they took parents like you who had carefully schooled their children in stranger danger and had their children play in a playground under the eye of a hidden camera where they were approached by an undercover police officer trying to lure them away. The parents were very confident that their child knew how to behave, but in the "real life" situation every single child went with the stranger. The parents were shocked to the core.

I guess I wonder whether highly visible programmes and initiatives in the US are actually any more effective than the less formal approach that parents here tend to take anyway? Do they just feel more effective, or are there any solid data to back that up?

Yes, what with stranger danger being (largely) imaginary, in the UK, we don't stress about it so much.

In mainland Europe (at least, Germany, and the Scandi countries) they worry about it even less - six year olds in Germany get themselves to school, using public transit, on their own. Yet they haven't magically all been abducted by strangers carrying puppies and candy.

Is it not the right to "bear" arms?

I would hope that you all have the right to bare arms on a hot day but am personally not a fan of the right to bear arms looking at the gun death statistics

Oh, and I'm Canadian, was raised with 'stranger danger' concepts ... and abusers in the extended family.

Butterbeer,
Most children that are molested are done so by a family member. While I am sure you are a wonderful parent, there are parents out there who touch thier children inappropriately. That is why, the education for appropriate touches comes from schools.

After the schools teach the children about good touches and bad touches, they are also given the opportunity to privately discuss anything they want with a qualified child counsler.

Yes I dreamofcloony I am a dork. But I am also in the US so it is really late and I am really tired.

I think the UK is probably getting more like the US now in the hysterical awareness of stranger danger

I've long suspected that teaching your children about good touch, bad touch, stranger danger, etc., makes not the slightest bit of difference. I know that Oprah isn't necessarily the most scientific back-up for my personal prejudices, but that finding about all kids going with strangers with no difference between the stranger aware and stranger unaware one, doesn't surprise me at all.

I think all we are doing by educating them in this way, is to break down the boundaries of trust and community which used to make children feel safe. They are safer now than they have ever been probably in the whole of recorded history, but they feel more at risk thanks to our focus on a very rare phenomenon.

But, again, does it (the US approach) actually make any real difference to the rates vs. what we do here (it is touched upon in school, just not in such a structured manner)?

IMO an abusing parent has had control of a child for many years before that child gets into the school system. Which is going to have more effect, those years of upbringing or a few lessons in school and being told that you can talk to a counsellor if you want?

In the one case of serious sexual abuse in the UK that I know the full details about the girl told a schoolfriend, who had been appropriately advised by her own parents and so immediately reported it to a teacher (the abusing adults in that case were jailed, although not IMO and IIRC for nearly long enough).

Littleboot

I strongly believe that it is in a childs best interest to be weary of people they don't know. I think you misguided to believe it doesn't help. If your child follows someone to thier car to see a puppy or get a peice of candy because they don't know to be weary, then they are in more danger.

As for the other. My little brother(he was seven) walked in on his friend being touched inappropriately, and reported it the next day at school as he was taught in school. The person who was touching the little girl was arrested and she was removed from a horrible situation.

So it sounds as though in practice it works the same way -- children from abusing families who have been raised to see abuse as normal don't report the abuse, but children from non-abusing families who have been raised with a knowledge of what is or isn't appropriate do. Does the formal programme make any difference to that?

I think the fact that children are given a chance to report the abuse right after the talk is really important. Maybe not every child will respond but if a portion of children do then the program will have served its purpose.

This is from the goodtouchbadtouch website

->SCHOOLS ->PARENTS ->DIVERSE GROUPS ->CALENDAR ->NEWS / PR ->RESOURCES ->ABUSE FACTS ->JOIN US Abuse Facts

About Abuse

Two Definitions of Sexual Abuse

"Sexual abuse includes any situation in which children are being used for someone else?s sexual gratification, ranging from hands-on abuse, such as fondling, oral sex, or intercourse, to exposure to disturbing sexual material. Sexual abuse can be traumatic to children since it is an overwhelming, out of the ordinary experience, and elicits feelings of helplessness and instinctual arousal."

• Eliana Gil, Ph.D.

"Child sexual abuse is a violation of power perpetrated by a person with more power over someone who is more vulnerable. This violation takes a sexual form, but it involves more than sex. It involves a breach of trust, a breaking of boundaries, and a profound violation of the survivors sense of self. It is a devastating and selfish crime. The most important thing in defining sexual abuse is the experience of the child. It takes very little for a child's world to be devastated. A single experience can have a profound impact on a child's life."

• Laura Davis and Ellen Bass, Co-Authors - Courage to Heal

Sexual Abuse Facts

Approximately 1 out of 4 girls and 1 out of 7 boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18 (Finkelhor, 1994). However, when one includes incidents of non-contact sexual abuse, the rate is much higher. Some researchers estimate the rate to be as many as 62.1% of females and 29% of males are sexually abused as children (Fergusson & Mullen, 1999).

Only 6-12% of sexual abuse cases are ever reported to the authorities (Berliner & Elliott, 2001). Sorenson and Snow (1991) found that among school aged children, educational awareness programs that included discussions about inappropriate behaviors, and stressed assertiveness and personal rights, had a dramatic effect on the number of children who purposefully told.

Hopefully this the last post answers the question.

Does education programs such as these make a difference?

Yes reporting is higher in schools that have these programs

Okay I have to go to bed. It is really late or really early here. Anyway, I hope you all carry this one on. I think we could learn some great stuff from each other.