Sex predators groom against child protection

“Brush you hair to make yourself look nice.” It’s almost a universal statement from the club of parenthood. Grooming and presentation of our children is fairly important to most of us. Who sends their child to school looking like they belong to no-one?!

While personal grooming is generally considered to be good, grooming is also a process of desensitization that sex predators use on children. A sex predator will use grooming to make themselves look nice and to prepare and trick a child into accepting sexual abuse. Grooming is not child protection: it is a process used to keep children quiet about child sexual abuse.

Once a sex predator has gained a child’s trust and confidence, the predator begins  to use everyday behaviours; like telling an inappropriate joke, a touch on the upper arm that lingers a little too long or a kiss on the lips, to test whether the child is likely to tell on them. Most children do not tell because they are confused about what the trusted person just did. Satisfied that the child won’t tell, the predator moves onto other forms of touching: bad touching. If the child still doesn’t tell, then the abuse continues along the continuum from non contact to contact and often ending with penetration and sometimes even homicide (extreme cases).

Just as we groom ourselves before going out to make us look presentable, predators often groom themselves as wonderful, caring people. They may involve themselves in your family’s life and they often do great things in the community. This is a trick. This is their grooming game. This is their way of being open about being sneaky and of gaining more access to your child and more trust from you. The child sex abusers often set themselves up to be high profile in a community and they spend a lot of energy in ensuring their good standing and innocence. They can sometimes be the person that we would first approach to baby-sit while we go to dinner. They are so good with the kids, so loving and protective, so eager to assist.

The grooming process can take many months, and includes grooming adults around the child: you and me. The child’s support networks are groomed to disbelieve any thing the child may say about inappropriate, strange occurrences or bad touches. The child sex predator may try to win adult confidence and support by having some quick conversations with you about a lie the child told or they may even suggest that there’s something unbalanced about your child. The predators do it so caringly and openly portray their concern and willingness to support you. The quick comments may well be true. The child may have lied or may even be acting out of character. But, just remember that if a child lies once it doesn’t doom them to an eternal cycle of lying. If ever your child says they’ve been abused, always believe them, even if you think it’s impossible. Remember, your thoughts of impossibility may be because you’ve been groomed.

Research suggests that approximately eighty-five percent of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by somebody well known to the child: somebody that has access to your child on an ongoing basis. This may suggest that the grooming has become so entrenched into our daily life that we fail to recognize it as grooming. Child sex abusers need access to children and the family home is a great place to find kids.

Sometimes innocent and protective mothers are married to the perpetrators and do not know it because the abuser has groomed the mother so well. Females too, sexually abuse, so sometimes it may be the mother than grooms the father. One thing to guard against though is mother blame. People will too often blame the mother saying that she must have known what was happening to her child. Often mother’s have no idea: they have been groomed to not believe and to allow sneaky behaviours to become normal.

Parents and grandparents generally love their children and want to protect them. If you know a family member, or anyone else, who may be abusing children you need to get them some help. The only way to get help is to tell someone in a position to act upon and stop the abuse: the police or child welfare authority in your state. You cannot assist, stop or change child sex perpetrators because you would do so at the risk of the child. Failure to protect children is as bad as abusing the child yourself.

Much research suggests that child sex abusers, sex predators or pedophiles do not abuse just one child: they abuse many. By failing to protect one child, you fail to protect other children. Please report (police or child welfare body) if a child discloses sexual assault or if you suspect that someone you know is abusing a child.

In this age of global unrest and terrorism, we are quick to act on suspicious activity. We try to prevent further acts of terror by recognizing the warning signs and intervening before something happens. Child sexual abuse is domestic terrorism and the abuser’s acts of terrorism affect our children for many years to come. Prevent the infiltration of domestic terrorism by recognizing the grooming process and stopping it now. Report and protect children. Child protection is every body’s responsibility.

This article first appeared in a similar form at families.com as
The Grooming Process of a Child Sexual Predator.

Related child protection articles:

Protect Kids from Sexual Predators by Using Correct Names for Private Parts.
Brush up on Good Touch/Bad Touch
Family Talk – A Way to Prevent Child Abuse
Five Simple BITSS to help Keep Kids Safe
Teaching about Touch through Protective Play
BITSS of Touch