- A boy and his sister, 12 and 7, are molested by the boarder their mother's taken in. She joins a convent to get away from the man; her brother will molest each of his children.
- A child health professional hands a doll to a 5-year-old girl and asks the girl to show her where the man touched her. The girl points to where the doll's legs meet. Testimony from the health professional, a psychologist and other expert witnesses help put a child molester behind bars.
- A man puts a cigarette out on his 7-year-old son's wrist. The boy tries not to show pain, but seven-year-old skin is pretty sensitive, and the object in question is burning at several hundred degrees higher than anything that ought to be touching skin.
- A man, 32, son of the boy, has four children. They're safe. The girl who joined a convent had saved the life of his daughter several years ago by recognizing that she had a life-threatening condition and needed to go to the hospital. Needed to go. He listened, and his daughter lived.
The nun -- the 32-year-old man's aunt -- had been visiting Virginia from Minnesota.
They have stopped the child abuse cycle in their lives. And they have saved a life.
I have written about this before. And because various and sundry on Facebook have decided that changing their avatars to cartoons will raise awareness of child abuse, I'm doing something I think is a little more pointful.
Words help
One very easy thing you can do is think of people who survive child abuse as survivors. Calling them victims focuses on what happened to them. ... they know what happened to them. Calling them survivors focuses on what they've done since.
People survive being shot at, being raped, being beaten, being verbally thrashed, being diagnosed with cancer. They survive abuse and neglect.
Another very easy thing you can do is write a letter to the editor about child abuse. (This is not as silly as it seems.) It takes an hour, if that. First, you look in your local community paper for a recent story about someone being found guilty of child abuse/molestation/etc. The terminology can differ. If you'd rather, call the newspaper office and ask to talk to the person who handles those articles -- my paper has two people who handle them, depending on the day. From there, the letter is very easy: Basically, you're applauding the strength it took for the survivor (not victim) to come forward, you're praising the district attorney's office for its job prosecuting the offender and thanking the defender for ensuring the legal process was followed and the guilty party's rights were honored. (If you wish to omit this last step, I won't yell at you.)
From there, you can cite a child abuse statistic, tell a personal story (make it brief, if possible; some word count maximums for letters to the editor don't allow for a useful story) or otherwise transition into:
"But the most important reason I'm writing this letter is that an unknown victim may read it and say, 'Today is the day it stops. Today is the day I stop being a victim and start being a survivor. There are people in the legal system and the community dedicated to helping child abuse end, and if they helped that [person you mentioned earlier], they can help me, too. I'm going to call'"
And then you put in the phone number and name of a local child advocacy group. Google child abuse phone number and your city and you should find someone who can help.
Your time and your concern
Where I live (and in a lot of other places), we have court-appointed special advocates, or CASAs. They do not have to have four-year degrees in anything. They do not have to be parents or have a background in child care. They do have to have time and dedication. Read more about them here.
The most important obvious-but-subtle thing I can tell you about being a CASA is that when there is an allegation of child abuse, for the child to come forward requires a hell of a lot of strength. And kids -- from 5-year-olds to 17-year-olds -- are going to have a lot of change and a lot of unfamiliar things in their lives during the legal process and everything related to it. Part of being a CASA is being the constant through that change -- of guiding the kids through it so the process itself isn't more trying than it has to be. Do not, do not, do not underestimate the importance of that constancy. Everywhere in life, we have "This is how things work here" people. Colleges give credit to new students for completing such classes. If you don't know how something works, it's new to you, and if you're already dealing with enough garbage in your life, having someone there to let you know what's going to happen -- and to be there with you as it happens -- can be the difference between being strong through and after the process and having it compound the pain of why you're there in the first place.
The next level
Kids who are removed from abusive homes are placed in foster homes. They need help with homework. They need to have their interests fostered and appreciated. They need to know what's expected of them and to have those expectations be stable and appropriate. They need fun. They need to know they can bring their friends home for homework or basketball or whatever, not just for protection from a relative or neighbor. They need to know they can make and admit to mistakes without needing to go to the hospital because they fell down the stairs ... again.
In short, they need responsible adults to show them what being someone's child is supposed to feel like. To find out more about how you can help, go here. And here's a support group network for foster children.
Making caring a career
While being a foster parent can translate into supplementary income (have an article on the subject), several school-based careers can help you set yourself up for a lifetime of and career in helping children survive their childhood.
Become a social worker. You'll be checking on foster children, investigating claims of unsafe living conditions and finding out just how dedicated you have to be to enter and remain in the field. Social workers aren't in the habit of talking about how gloriously short their days are. The work is hard, and the pay isn't what it ought to be considering children are our future (we pay politicians $100,000 a year to, among other things, officially rename post offices, but we pay the folks who work with children substantially less), but if you're looking for personally fulfilling work, you don't need to look past this one.
Become a lawyer. You'll be arguing a lot of cases, many of them probably not regarding child abuse. But if you want to, you'll likely get your share of time spent helping children forge new lives for themselves. You'll be able to help make sure the system works for kids, not against them.
Become a child psychologist, psychiatrist or counselor. Become a pediatrician. Become an elementary school teacher. Put yourself in a position to be around kids and be trusted by them. Part of your official, from-an-accredited-institution training will focus on being able to spot problems ...
Know these signs of abuse:
Unexplained injuries. Visible signs of physical abuse may include unexplained burns or bruises in the shape of objects. You may also hear unconvincing explanations of a child's injuries.
Changes in behavior. Abuse can lead to many changes in a child's behavior. Abused children often appear scared, anxious, depressed, withdrawn or more aggressive.
Returning to earlier behaviors. Abused children may display behaviors shown at earlier ages, such as thumb-sucking, bed-wetting, fear of the dark or strangers. For some children, even loss of acquired language or memory problems may be an issue.
Fear of going home. Abused children may express apprehension or anxiety about leaving school or about going places with the person who is abusing them.
Changes in eating. The stress, fear and anxiety caused by abuse can lead to changes in a child's eating behaviors, which may result in weight gain or weight loss.
Changes in sleeping. Abused children may have frequent nightmares or have difficulty falling asleep, and as a result may appear tired or fatigued.
Changes in school performance and attendance. Abused children may have difficulty concentrating in school or have excessive absences, sometimes due to adults trying to hide the children's injuries from authorities.
Lack of personal care or hygiene. Abused and neglected children may appear uncared for. They may present as consistently dirty and have severe body odor, or they may lack sufficient clothing for the weather.
Risk-taking behaviors. Young people who are being abused may engage in high-risk activities such as using drugs or alcohol or carrying a weapon.
Inappropriate sexual behaviors. Children who have been sexually abused may exhibit overly sexualized behavior or use explicit sexual language.
I wet the bed until I was 13. (Bullying is abuse too. I had nightmares about the same jackass until I was 21 and I had the latest iteration of that dream where you're running away from someone and the closer you get to safety, the slower you're going, until you make that last desperate leap and you hang in midair and you're so despondent you don't even respect yourself enough to bother to turn around for the inevitable impact.
And I'd been having a good run of things, so I stopped running, and I turned and faced him, and I reached out and grabbed his neck and choked him and turned his neck into a twisty straw type of thing, and my nightmare became a dream. I had a few more like that, and I just whaled on the guy. Felt good.
I haven't had a nightmare since.)
Cold, hard cash
Donate.
http://www.protect.org/