How can parents recognize a pedophile?
Remember the cautions we received while growing up? Don’t take candy from strangers. Don’t talk to strangers. Beware of bushes and dark alleys because a bad person might be lurking in them.
We have learned much more about pedophiles since these days. Mainly, we have learned that our advice and cautions need to be different from the ones listed above. After 25 years of gathering data on how pedophiles behave, here are some of the things we have learned.
• Nearly 80 percent of pedophiles are persons known and trusted by the child and the parents. Many are family members or close friends of the family.
• Pedophiles often have charming and pleasant personalities. They know how to gain the trust and confidence of both children and adults. They are not likely to be "creepy strangers" lurking in alleys. They live among us.
• Pedophiles take time to develop relationships with children. They groom them carefully through contacts that are fun for the children and youth. It is only after they have cultivated the trust of children and parents that they move into activities that take advantage of their victims.
• Child abusers are not limited to any socioeconomic class or any ethnic group. They can be of any age and gender. Their commonality is that their arrested development leads them to gain satisfaction from encounters with children and youth rather than with appropriate sexual partners.
• Pedophiles are attracted to professions and jobs that allow them to have access to children. The local pedophile can be the coach, priest, babysitter or youth group leader. Within families, an uncle or cousin might well victimize several other family members, often choosing those of a certain age or gender. Pedophiles tend to repeat their behavior often and in definite patterns.
These are disturbing realities for parents. Coupled with the statistics that in Alaska one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18 makes us ask what parents can do to protect their children.
• Communicate from the time the child is in preschool until they are through adolescence that they do not need to put up with any contact from an adult which makes them uncomfortable.
• Teach youth to be assertive and learn to say "no" even to adults they know well if the adult is suggesting that they do something that they feel might not be right.
• Build each child’s self-confidence and sense of worth through positive experiences of love and understanding.
• Listen carefully and teach children that they need to come to you or someone they trust when they are uncomfortable. Let them know that there are no "secrets" that they have to keep. They will be listened to and believed when they bring information forward. Pray for all of our families that we may learn to listen so that children will learn to talk with us.