Poll Your Children And Your Abuser

[Abstract]

My mother was/is emotionally abusive with me.

This is one of the things that was clouding the issue for me before. There are a lot of emotionally abusive members in my direct and extended family. Would I have preferred no contact or supervised, limited contact? It seems very different to me depending on a whole array of things. For a lot of them I would have chosen to have limited and supervised contact rather than not as there were a few other things I got out of having them around. Ongoing contact with emotional abuse is what causes the most harm. It's when it builds up and you don't have protection that it starts eroding your very self.

Not talking about the type of emotional abuse such as threats of death or more of course. It's all very complex but when it comes to sexual and physical abuse it isn't in my mind.

Sorry to hear that digger. It's also good that you have children as I have kept doubting myself as I don't and can't presume to know what it is like.

 

[digger]

I should say that my mum doesn't treat him the way she treated me. If she did then he wouldn't be seeing her. The reasons I have contact with her are complicated, but I do keep contact with her fairly limited anyway for my own sake, but my son has had positives from his relationship with her.

It isn't simple.

 

[Abstract]

When I say clouding the issue I meant that I was struggling to tell whether I thought children are always better without contact with an abuser. I was trying to think back to how it was for me but couldn't think clearly before.

When it comes to emotional abuse my mother is different with my niece and nephew than she was and is with me. There are tiny signs every now and then but nothing serious and they benefit in many ways from being with her. What has also changed things is my very clear boundary setting with her over the last 8 or so years. It didn't do anything for many years but things did shift eventually.

I think any responsible parent has a duty to address any incident of verbal or emotional abuse to their child and put boundaries in place for them. That's the key issue here. Children are reliant on their parents to have boundaries set for them.

 

[Abstract]

I am not saying that I can't imagine many different situations that would make it very hard for the abused person to break away from the abuser when it comes to something such as sexual abuse. I have great sympathy for their being many difficult factors. People are often terrified, indoctrinated, bullied, have Stockholm syndrome, have dependency issues and assertiveness issues to contend with. Some people are still being abused themselves as adults by the abuser without having the skills to protect themselves and get away let alone protect their children. Some have not even been able to come out of denial over their own experiences. I totally sympathise with that too. Good grief - I am queen of denial. There may also be other factors. What I am saying is that I can't imagine a situation where it would not be potentially harmful to child when there is contact with this type of abuser

I think I''ll shut up now as believe it or not I hate the sound of my own voice.

 

[Hashi]

What I am saying is that I can't imagine a situation where it would be potentially harmful to child is there is contact with this type of abuser if there is a choice.

I'm sorry, you've lost me with this sentence. Did you mean to say you can imagine a situation? Or am I just not understanding?

 

[Abstract]

I already just read and corrected the typos/incoherance Hashi.

 

[Hashi]

I agree with what you say.

 

[ms spock]

There are a number of reasons that I think it is a good idea. Because people who have been sexually abused are very likely to have their children sexually abused as they don't know the signs.

I have been involved with incest survivors for almost 25 years and was firmly in the camp of no contact with sexual abuser. But then when I saw how such a great proportion of the offspring get sexually abused anyway because of the lack of skills of child protection I thought there has to be a better way.

Once I was a representative for Adult Survivors of Child Abuse (ASCA) and I met an overseas visitor who represented an Incest Survivors group that had just been accredited to the UN. She worked with incest survivors and her ideas of dealing with sexual abusers really challenged my world view.

Parents by watching their own child rapist they learn the behaviours which ripples out to other areas of their lives. There are discussions and learning which mean they are much more likely to pick up on warning behaviours in other situations.

The child can be told age appropriate things like "We don't trust Grandpa, so we don't go anywhere on our own with him."

By diligently practicing these protective behaviours it means the child learns about safe behaviours and more importantly so does the parent.

I personally think this is one sure way to stop the intergenerational nature of child sexual abuse. Because it is a continual learning curve.

And if we shift to there are really bad parts of people and there are really good parts of people. If we can stop seeing sexual abusers as monsters but real people that need help then we stop assisting them by seeing through the prism of being a monster and we start seeing them as people that we need to have in treatment programs and be monitored.

Seeing sexual predators as monsters actually enables them more access to children as no one wants to admit they have a monster in the family.

If we see them as human beings that have one area we really have to monitor them in - then by looking at reality we provide children with safety and we cut off their access to groom the next generation whether it be in our families or next door neighbour, priest, nun, grandmother, grandfather, female/male relatives.

I mean many people don't even know about female sexual predators.

 

[ms spock]

The abuser seems to be kept in the family and remains accepted and the person who is abused is usually the one in trouble, treated with resentment or at worst is ostracised.

I was osctracised.

 

[intothelight]

Anyone who answers "yes" to this question doesn't deserve to have kids.

Its always interesting when someone makes such broad statements. My ex was awarded visitation with my two youngest children after spending 12K fighting for sole custody. Even though he was convicted of spousal abuse, child abuse (with one of my older children) and stalking, the court in its infinite wisdom felt there was some intrinsic value to allow him contact with the youngest two.

So I complied and we would exchange them at the police station, as the judge recognized he was a serious danger to me. So why not the children??? Guess what the judge was wrong and ultimately he molested them. Yes, he was prosecuted and is serving life in prison, but with the knowledge that I have now, it doesn't mean that I wouldn't have had my children,,,,I just would have killed him.

So now I live with knowing that by obeying the law the that I hurt my children more than anyone should be hurt. I also know that sometimes doing everything right is everything wrong. So be careful with your blanket statements. It isn't always the person that says "yes" that doesn't deserve to have children, it is the children that don't deserve to have abuse in their life. Right now I think there is something horribly wrong with our justice system and I choose to advocate for those who can't for themselves.

Sad thing is, if I had disobeyed the law I would have lost custody. It was truly a no win situation.

 

[ms spock]

Sad thing is, if I had disobeyed the law I would have lost custody. It was truly a no win situation.

Yes and then he could have sexually abused them for years on end, under that wise judgement of the law. In the Australian Family Court system this is such a well known story as to be a cliche. It is totally ridiculous what happens.

 

[Abstract]

Believe or not despite my comments about vipers and crocodiles I do think there is good in all people. I also believe some with that good and bad are very dangerous and often highly manipulative human beings who are not easily stopped from their course of action and are very opportunistic. Usually with little or zero remorse. Usually without any capacity to take ownership of their own behaviour.

Identifying behaviour in individuals like this is one thing but avoiding harm seems like a totally different issue to me. I doubt there is anything at all a child or even an adult can do to protect themselves from such people other than put them in jail where they can have forced therapy (hopefully) or some other form of long term intervention.

The child knowing we can't trust grandpa is one thing but if grandpa is clever, physically more powerful, manipulative and an opportunist then I don't see how that would help much.

It seems to me there should be many other ways of teaching children and adults how to identify behaviour that indicates there is a problem. Other than having the paedophile or abuser still in their home and lives.

The behaviour one would need to do to avoid harm from a predator seems to me to also not be a good idea to teach all children. For example having a hug. A hug would not be a good idea but hugs in general between children and their parents and aunts and uncles etc are a great idea. I am struggling to understand the type of general self protection that would be taught.

I would imagine one of the main reasons victims are abused or families are abused is because of lack of understanding boundaries. Being unable to set them. Unable to know what is appropriate. Ingrained dissociation and freezing response. Abandonment and attachment issues. Assertiveness issues because of not being allowed assertiveness.

I can't imagine any amount of being around abusers and being told to be careful in family would have been necessary to teach me how to identify problematic people and how to protect myself. It has been painful hard work developing assertiveness and self awareness as well as awareness of others behaviour. Of not ignoring it and hearing it properly. Of standing my ground despite fear and without freezing. Of finding an appropriate and timely fight response. Of finding a way to connect to my emotions and knowing what they are telling me. Of feeling I have a right to safety. Most of all I think it has been the connecting with my emotions when I am able and understanding what they are saying - listening to them. None of this is easy still but it is what changed things for me. In fact I only really started being able to learn some of this when I was safer for the first time.

At what point or what type of situation would training such as this start? I think it would help me if I could picture an example.

I am struggling to truly believe that the only thing that keeps people from denying that they have a paedophile in the family is thinking paedophiles are monsters. I truly know I do not have that 25 years of experience of working with victims and I would never presume to have the knowledge of someone who has training and that type of experience. It seems to me more often about people splitting and not being able to hold the good and bad in their minds at the same time. Something we all do with abusers to some extent. That and people having self interest in their lives and their world view or family not being upset or interfered with. Often there are many things to indicate that the person has acknowledged that this is dangerous person and yet they still continue to try to force the victim to not make any waves and not cause any inconvenience to the family. It isn't so much denial as refusal to change anything that would cause them inconvenience.

Unless they have been abused themselves and then again I think it is way more complicated. We are then looking at all sorts of psychological coping mechanisms that are keeping things disconnected. I still can't envision how seeing abusers as less frightening and OK to keep in the family is going to change one of them. I am open to hearing any information that may change my mind.

One of the key things for me is that unless one has rehabilitated the abuser then I can't really imagine any situation that would protect those in the environment.