Best Practice #2 is focused on who has access to children. In Best Practice #3 you'll see our focus change to establishing boundaries relating to the behavior of those who have been granted access.
Accept Responsibility
As a parent, you have the responsibility to protect your children from sexual abuse. You have both the legal responsibility as well as a moral obligation. Although there are situations where you may want to delegate that responsibility such as when your children are at school, you still have the obligation to ensure the safety of all situations you put your child in. This responsibility cannot be delegated.
While it is always our hope that family members work together to protect their children, 30-40% of child sexual abuse happens at the hands of a family member(5) which means you also have the responsibility to protect your children from your parents, your siblings, your spouse and even your other children, if necessary.
Managing Access
We grant child molesters access to our kids. It's tough to hear but it is a reality. Every time you send your children to school, soccer, piano lessons, or the neighbor's house or hire a babysitter to come into your house, you have potentially given a child molester access to your precious children. You have potentially put your children in extreme danger that could change the course of their lives and they may never tell.(6) Your kids are counting on you to make conscious choices about who you allow to be with them.
We recommend that parents limit the number of adults who have private access to their kids to 5 or less – Mom, Dad, maybe Grandma, your neighbor and your nanny. While it won't result in a drastic difference if you choose to go with 6 people, the process of committing to a small specific limit requires you to stop and evaluate the need for another person to have access. This makes it a conscious choice rather than just letting it happen based on convenience or opportunity. Commit the limit to memory with a visual image - hold up one hand and use your 5 fingers as a reminder.
Child molesters seek opportunity so it is critically important that you understand how child molesters groom kids, families, organizations and communities in order to gain private access. When you leave your kids with another adult or organization such as a school or sports league, it is your responsibility to ask the right questions to ensure that they avoid private access to your kids and that they have the proper boundaries in place to minimize risk. Even semi-private access with one adult and multiple kids can pose a danger so those choices should be conscious as well.
As a parent, you have the responsibility to protect your children from sexual abuse. You have both the legal responsibility as well as a moral obligation. Although there are situations where you may want to delegate that responsibility such as when your children are at school, you still have the obligation to ensure the safety of all situations you put your child in. This responsibility cannot be delegated.
While it is always our hope that family members work together to protect their children, 30-40% of child sexual abuse happens at the hands of a family member(5) which means you also have the responsibility to protect your children from your parents, your siblings, your spouse and even your other children, if necessary.
Managing Access
We grant child molesters access to our kids. It's tough to hear but it is a reality. Every time you send your children to school, soccer, piano lessons, or the neighbor's house or hire a babysitter to come into your house, you have potentially given a child molester access to your precious children. You have potentially put your children in extreme danger that could change the course of their lives and they may never tell.(6) Your kids are counting on you to make conscious choices about who you allow to be with them.
We grant child molesters access to our kids and our kids are coubnting on us to make conscious choices about who we allow to be with them.
We recommend that parents limit the number of adults who have private access to their kids to 5 or less – Mom, Dad, maybe Grandma, your neighbor and your nanny. While it won't result in a drastic difference if you choose to go with 6 people, the process of committing to a small specific limit requires you to stop and evaluate the need for another person to have access. This makes it a conscious choice rather than just letting it happen based on convenience or opportunity. Commit the limit to memory with a visual image - hold up one hand and use your 5 fingers as a reminder.Child molesters seek opportunity so it is critically important that you understand how child molesters groom kids, families, organizations and communities in order to gain private access. When you leave your kids with another adult or organization such as a school or sports league, it is your responsibility to ask the right questions to ensure that they avoid private access to your kids and that they have the proper boundaries in place to minimize risk. Even semi-private access with one adult and multiple kids can pose a danger so those choices should be conscious as well.