By Tammi Pitzen, Executive Director of the Children’s Advocacy Center of Jackson County
Spoiler alert! This is really an opinion piece and personal in some regards. You will be reading a lot of “I” statements and a lot of things that are based on my personal experience. If that interests you then I invite you to continue reading.
Generally, when we talk about child abuse, we talk about prevention or intervention. Prevention comes in a lot of different forms. Some examples are classes teaching you to recognize and respond to signs of abuse (like our Protect Our Children program), increasing efforts to address social problems (i.e. substance abuse, poverty, or homelessness) or increasing awareness. Interventions usually come after an episode of abuse has occurred. Examples of these are medical evaluations and treatments, mental health services, forensic interviews, advocacy and support to the victim and their non-offending caregivers, and prosecution of the offender.
I have been musing a lot over prevention programming and interventions and how they fit together.
Traditionally, the work of a Child Advocacy Center (in the national model sense) has been on the intervention side. Many CAC’s have either long-established prevention programs or are beginning to dip their toes into the prevention arena.
Most of my professional experience has been in tertiary prevention. Tertiary prevention is defined as actions that reduce impact of injury that has already occurred or preventing on going injury by detecting and responding to prevent long term problems. What this means in the CAC world is we help to give parents tools to keep their kids safe in the future, we provide interventions to respond to the abuse of a child to mitigate the long term impact on their emotional well-being and overall health, and we hope to help parents keep their kids safe from abuse in the future.
In the last ten years or so I have been looking more intently at primary prevention.
It becomes overwhelming and seems like a daunting task to eradicate child abuse. Some days it seems impossible.
The depressing truth of the matter is that the causes of child abuse are so varied that it becomes hard to see how our work can make any real difference. There are those “causes” that seem more easy to impact. Things like lack of parenting knowledge, or even poverty or substance abuse. There are tangible things that we can do. We can provide parenting classes. We can provide job training and tangible benefits to help bridge the gaps. We can make housing assistance opportunities available. These are concrete actions that you can take that will reduce stress and reduce risk for child abuse.
Today, for the purposes of this blog, I want to talk about what we can do to reduce the risk for our children to become victims of abuse early in childhood…from the first breath, so to speak.
Before I dive into that, I do want to acknowledge that abuse is pervasive. We can do every single thing right and our child can be abused by someone we trust. As a professional in the field, my advice is to do everything we can and if something still happens to our child, we need to remember to blame the offender and not ourselves.
We cannot do “lazy” parenting.
This is what I call it when I get on auto pilot. I fall into the routine and stop asking the daily questions with my son. I forget to check in on how things are going and fall into false safety that if everything was not okay, my son would tell me. This is a dangerous place for a parent to be.
As a parent, I believe that the minute our child is born, we should begin to strategically pay “attention” as a way to prevent child abuse. AND that it should be an active, not passive, process. I know. Even as I type that out it seems dramatic, over the top and somewhat “crazy”. But hear me out.
We need to immediately begin to build resiliency in our child and to create a parent child relationship that nurtures safety, acceptance and love.
Here are some things I believe are important to start from day one, so to speak:
Spend quality and quantity time with your child.
Sing to your child. Read to your child. Smile at your child. Reading or singing to your children helps to build a connection. I am an awful singer, but I would make up songs to tunes of familiar children’s songs using my child’s name. He would light up with delight when he heard his name. We did this until the day he was old enough to ask me to stop singing and turn on the radio because I wasn’t doing it right. I will let you in on a secret. I sometimes still do this. I get eye rolls and sometimes giggles. Usually followed by “Mom, you are so weird!”
When your child begins to develop speech, have conversations with them about what to do when they do not feel safe and who they can turn to for help.
Create a regular routine.
Children, even very young children, feel safety in knowing that their needs will be met. It reduces anxiety. They know what to expect. As they grow, let them negotiate changes in the routine. I found that once my child understood the connection between the routine and his safety, health, or behavior; he was more accepting of the parts of the routine he did not like.
Believe it or not, children thrive when they have boundaries enforced.
These boundaries will also help to create an understanding of things that are unsafe physically (as in, don’t get too close to the edge of the balcony) and emotionally (as in, unhealthy relationships or friendships that are based on bullying).
Along the way, make sure that your children have lots of family time and closeness.
During times of high anxiety, increase the time you spend with them playing with them, reading with them, or doing things they enjoy. This sets in place a familiar pattern. In times of stress or feelings of anxiety, they will know they can turn to you. It may even become instinct to turn to you.
Always listen when they talk to you.
Even when it is about something they saw on YouTube or something silly from their favorite TV show or book. I try to listen intently and be interested. I am even trying to understand Minecraft. If you hear the small stuff and respond, then they will come to you with the big stuff because it will feel safe. If you hear the small stuff and respond, then they do not need to learn how to filter stuff out. They won’t need to figure out what is a big deal and what isn’t. They will tell you all of it.
When they begin to spend time with people when you are not around…always ask “THE” questions.
You know…Do you have firearms? Where are they kept? Will my child have access to them? Who will be there? What adults will be there? What kids will be there? What is the supervision plan? What activities are planned? Where do you keep medications?
I do not generally let my child spend the night with someone where I have not met their parents and that I have not spent an hour or more in conversation. In fact, in his ten years of life, he has spent time at my parents’ house, my sisters’ house and three other children’s house without me being present. It isn’t me being over protective. And I am definitely not saying children should not spend time with friends without their parents. This is an important developmental milestone. What I am saying is to do your due diligence. Don’t just know their name. Get to know the people that will be around your child. If you child makes a new friend that you don’t know, then find an opportunity to visit with the parents and the child.
Then I always do a check in afterwards with my son. Did you have fun? What was the best part? What was the worst part? Who was there? What did you do? Only, make it more of a conversation. My son begins to catch on and tells me he does not like to answer questions; or “Mom, I don’t like this game.” Be creative. It is less about the answers unless something concerning comes up and more about putting into place a pattern of conversation and teaching him who to come to if he needs to talk.
Eat dinner together as a family. No electronics at the table.
This is a powerful way to build relationships. It may seem old school or out of style, but there is something nurturing about sharing a meal together. When you sit down to eat together, it gives you an opportunity to look at each other eye to eye. It gives you an opportunity to teach manners and etiquette that can be helpful when they become adults. It gives you an opportunity to slow things down for an hour or so. No matter what else is going on before or after, you can always count on that one hour a day to be together. It is one way to show your children that “family time” is a priority. They are a priority.
Kids need to know they have value. They need to know this when they feel good about themselves, so they will remember when they feel bad about themselves.
Here are some harder ones. Model self-love.
Children imitate what they hear. I know this is true. I have become obsessed with my weight in the last few years. I get a reality check when I hear things I have said about my body coming out of my child’s mouth in connection to his body. We need to love ourselves! I want my insecurities to end with me and not be passed down to my son.
Let your child see you fail at something or not be good at something.
Don’t wear your superhero cape all the time. Children need to see that it is okay not to be good at everything and that failure is the first step in success. They need to know that it is not the end of the world to make a mistake. My son and I have been talking a lot about integrity, courage and kindness.
Help your child set goals.
Help your child find their passion.
Help your child be kind to others.
Teach your child compassion and empathy.
Help your child be a friend and make friends.
Give them opportunity to have a social circle. Build your tribe. Your tribe as in those people who you count on and who count on you. Those people you socialize with and that help you teach social skills to your children.
Why is all of this important in prevention of child abuse? How does it all fit together?
Building strong confident children help them to navigate the world better. Being present in their life puts everyone on notice that you are there and you are protecting your child. Teaching them to fail gracefully, to be a loyal friend, to accept help, to love themselves…all help to teach your child to be resilient. Helping them to find their passion and keeping them busy, keeps them healthy and gives them an outlet when they are feeling anxious.
Each skill taught, each nurturing moment, each opportunity to be present in their life…all represent a piece of a puzzle.
Fitting them all together helps to build strong children, create a safety net, put would-be offenders on notice and model a communication style that when they do get in unsafe situations they will know how to ask for help.
As a bonus, when I am doing these things and doing them regularly, I find my own parenting anxieties are decreased. I find my own life more in balance. I find my relationship with my husband stronger which enables us to parent more cohesively.
