For Parents

It's not easy to be a parent. Sometimes it even feels overwhelming & all you feel like doing is running away, or hiding under the bed & never coming out.
There are days that you are more than frustrated & you have this little one, who usually is such an angel, trying your patience like no other day in your life.
You feel so frustrated & stressed & in today's daily routine you probably have every reason to be. There are bills to pay, a job to go to, a home to take care of & most importantly & most demanding you have a child or children that have no one else but you to take care of their every need. And sometimes all that frustration can get the better of you, but those are the days that we need to be more alert & more careful.
Because there is a terrible fact about frustration, it can lead to abuse!
So we need to know how to control it in order to never bring harm to our children because we are frustrated or stressed.
I think this is probably one of the most taboo subjects when talking about child abuse. And it’s funny that it should be, but even sexual abuse isn't quite looked on as critically as this when talking to people about it, especially parents.
Because when we talk about abuse, we picture in our heads these terribly sick men or women like Fish, Dodd, and Yates etc... & think that those are who the abusers are, there is no way that the sweet mother next door, or the new family from across the street, much less themselves could in any way be in a situation where they would abuse their children.
Abuse can come in lots of different forms & we as parents need to identify them in order to not fall into any of these forms of abuse.

Physical abuse: Physical abuse is when you cause bodily harm to you child & especially when you do so out of anger or rage that comes from frustration or stress or depression.
Even if you love your kids, you can fall into this form of abuse when we don't have control over our frustration we can do a lot of harm to the people we claim to love the most.
I believe that one of the best ways to show your children that you love them is to love yourself & help yourself.
As a parent have a very big responsibility & if you are not well, if you’re over stressed for whatever reason, then your ability as a fair caretaker may not be what you thought it was, and you may find yourself reacting in ways that you thought you never would.
So for the love of God PLEASE get help when feel yourself getting too frustrated with your children or when you find yourself doing things that you know you shouldn't and in any way resemble abuse!

Emotional & Psychological Abuse: Emotional abuse is when you deny your child emotional support. Sometimes in the rush of the day we forget how important a hug is, but to our kids & especially when they are infants, hugging, cuddling & holding are just as important as eating & sleeping.
Showing your kids how much you care for them is an essential thing.
Sometimes we take for granted how much a child needs care & love from their parents but a child notices things that you as a busy adult don't even think about.
Like when the last time was you said something nice to them, or if you kissed them goodnight, said good morning, hugged them, gave them a tap on the shoulder, or showed them a gesture of affection.
But more than noticing what you don't do though they notice what you do. Yelling, threatening, screaming, bullying are some of the ways that we can emotionally and psychologically abuse our kids as well, we need to watch out to not do it.
Yelling can be something that is very easily done & sometimes it might seem impossible to stop doing, especially if you have come from a family where you were yelled at a lot. You almost feel that its a part of your subconscious.
But it can be stopped, not one day to the next of course, but slowly day by day & moment by moment.
Lets say you are having a stressful day & your toddler just wet his pants, or worse pooed his pants & you were about go out the door, you are running late & the taxi is waiting outside.
The most natural reaction may be to yell your head off, maybe even scream a little, but counting to 10 or 20 or 100 can help reduce the stress a lot.
Believe me I know from experience!
Another form of emotional abuse can be letting your children see arguments in the home. A child has this inborn feeling of guilt whenever his/her parent or people that they care about argue or fight and they feel they are to blame for the disagreements between them.
So it’s important to keep stressful situation like arguments away from the kids.
There are even times when we may blame our kids for things that we feel stressed about & that is big mistake! Our kids are learning about life & they are not to blame for problems in the home. They are learning & they make mistakes, if we make mistakes so will they & in their case it’s a thousand times more understandable.
So don't ever place the blame on your children. Because they carry it around with them & they might take it with them all the way to adulthood & that is very dangerous.
There are types of extreme forms of emotional and psychological abuse that sometimes parents do without noticing how bad they are & how horrible they can feel for the child, for example, humiliating them, name-calling, negatively comparing to others. Telling the child he or she is "worthless," "bad," or "a mistake."
When we compare our children with other people’s children or with their siblings & sometimes even with ourselves when we were kids, can be very detrimental.
When you do this you teach your kids that they are not good enough how they are & that they should be like someone else. You directly attack their identity & when they are desperately trying to find one during their teenage years, they may have even grater difficulty because of those comparisons.
We as adults & parents need to have a healthy way to look at ourselves & others in order to pass that on to our children.
We as grow ups need to love ourselves & have a high self esteem in order to pass that on to our kids & not destroy theirs.
So we must remember that there are different things that constitute as emotional and psychological abuse & I believe somethings most of us have done without knowing how bad it is.
It's only human to make these mistakes but we need to try to do them as least as possible, doing our best to reduce the times we do these things can help us eventually not do them at all.

Neglect: I believe neglect is one of the saddest forms of abuse because children that suffer from this kind of abuse feel very alone and suffer from sickness & hunger & if they are young, they can die because their basic needs were not met. Neglect can vary from being a latch-key-kid to being a child that sleeps on a park bench.
"Neglect is a very common type of child abuse. According to Child Welfare Information Gateway, more children suffer from neglect than from physical and sexual abuse combined. Yet victims are not often identified, primarily because neglect is a type of child abuse that is an act of omission — of not doing something."(Help guide.com)
As parents our most important mission in life is to lovingly care & provide for our children, no matter what kind of difficulty we may be encountering or how bad we may feel, how poor we may be or what circumstances we may be in. If we were old enough to have a child then we are old enough to work hard to take good care of him/her.
One thing that is important to know about neglect is that although one act of neglect may not constitute as abuse, repeated acts of neglect most definitely are .
So we need to realize that the habits that we form as parents are extremely important, we need to form good habits because one habit that is a neglectful habit can turn us into a child abuser.

The best way to prevent child abuse is to educate ourselves on the subject & make a conscious change.
Learn how to control our emotions to better the life of our kids.

About my last post

At first I thought that maybe the stories written on my Learn from the mistakes of others post might be too strong. But now I realize that the truth needs to be told & people sometimes need to hear the gory details in order to be moved into motion. Now that I read back I think that maybe I was even too soft. We need to know the cruelties of the world in order to protect our kids. There are a lot of bad people out there doing terrible things & we need to counterattack it. Because they wont stop unless we make them.

Learn from the mistakes of others.

I wanted to dedicate a post to some sad stories in which something happened to kids & someone could have done something to prevent it but didn't.
Not all these cases are specifically of abuse, but more of neglect & again..ignorance. I could also add irresponsibility & just plain stupidity, but I don't want to be too harsh because I believe in some way or other we have all made the same type of mistakes. Mistakes that exposed young innocent lives to predators that might not have had a chance to commit ruthless crimes against children if something had been done differently.
It is because of this that I want to write about these stories, so we can become more aware of the consequences of these small mistakes & how they can be monumental in comparison.
The mistakes that the people made in some of these stories could have been made for many reason, some because of the culture of the country, or the culture of the time, but the fact remains the same something could have been done & wasn't & a child payed dearly for that mistake.

The first story is probably one of the worst, the story of 4 year old Billy Gaffney that on Feb 11th 1927 was abducted, tortured, mutilated & killed by Albert Fish, one of the worst child abusers & killers of all time.
In this story there are some key parts that if they had been done differently by these individuals then the child might not have reached such a terrible end.
Point #1: The boy was left playing in the hallway of his apartment with a 3 yr old neighbor boy. They were not being watched by anyone except periodically by his 12 year old brother that was baby-sitting his baby sister sleeping in the apartment.
Obviously the first mistake, very young children left on their own in a public place. If they were in the apartment it wouldn't have happened ( even just with his teenage brother, not ideal , but better), if an adult had been with them it most certainly wouldn't have happened.
Point # 2: On the trolley that Fish took with young Billy to meet his terrible fate the motorman noticed how the boy cried uncontrollably & how the old man tried to keep him quite. He also saw the man dragging him on & off the trolley.
He was suspicious, he had a doubt, but did nothing.
If the man had just drawn some attention to the old man, there is a great possibility that he would've fled for fear of being discovered, but he did nothing & let the old man drag the poor child to his death.
There are a few points from other crimes of Albert Fish that I will touch upon briefly. Because I believe that is important to know that monsters like Albert Fish can only do their terrible deeds if we let them.
On one occasion, during his preying of an earlier (1924) victim Francis McDonnell, a neighbor (adult) saw the old man staring at the kids & following young Francis. Yet again, nothing was done & the child met his end later that day.
This is I think one of the most sad stories, because this was a consequence totally due to her parents ignorance. The case of Grace Budd, this was the case that helped authorities finally apprehend Fish.
Fish posed himself as someone else, offering work to the Budd's older son. He went twice to their house & on the second visit they let their young daughter Grace sit on his lap. He then proceeded to invite Grace to a birthday party & although the mother was apprehensive, the father said it was OK. That was the last time they saw their little girl.
I think that nowadays that would be something very difficult to happen, but I mention it because the mother should have followed her gut feeling & the father should have ever been so trusting of a stranger. An extreme case, I know, but nonetheless worth mentioning.
1996
Another story is a little more recent & it hasn't been resolved, so there is no details on what happened, but what we know is that this boy was kidnapped. This story is a sad & unfortunate story, mainly because the mistake made in this story is a very human & easy to make mistake.
But it has some important details that must be pointed out, details that could have been done differently & the fate of this child could have been very different.
Its the story if 11 year old Jacob Wetterling. He was left at home babysitting his younger brother and sister 10 & 8 years old.
It was past dark & he wanted to go to a convenience store to rent a video, he knew that his parents didn't want him out after dark, but he decided to call his mom & ask anyway. She said no because she was afraid that the drivers wouldn't see them on their bikes in the dark. But in the words of Steve Irsay of Court TV about Jacob "At age 11 he was savvy enough to know that if mom said no, dad just might say yes."
So he proceeded to ask his Dad coming up with a better plan, all three boys ( one was a neighbor boy that was 12) would go in their bikes, one caring a flashlight, the other wearing a white vest & the other a reflective orange vest.
The father thought that was a sound plan & let them go. On their way back, a man with a gun came out of the bushes, ordered the neighbor boy & his younger brother to run away & took Jacob who was never seen again.
I think that the mistake made by the father is one that many parents can relate to. We make rules for a reason & just one time that we don't stay firm to these rules can make us pay for the rest of our lives, not to mentioned our children's lives.
1989
These last two stories have made a great impact on me for a huge variety of reasons which I will mention further on, but these are other classic cases of parents not keeping a watchful eye & mainly letting their young children be out on the street alone.
The first one is about 11 & 10 year old Cole & Billy Leer, they were late to get home, it was Monday night. They decided to take a shortcut when they were met by Weslley Allan Dodd, one of the worst criminals against children, I will skip the details, but they met a very very tragic, painful, untimely & unnecessary death.
The reason why I mention this story is because the criminal wasn't caught until after he was able to commit yet another crime against a 4 year old this time, young Lee Iseli.
Lee was allowed by his father to go to a nearby playground with his brother ( a child).
He was soon left alone, exposed to the predator Allan Dodd who took him to his home & eventually killed him after abusing him.
First of all the children needed to have an adult present, especially when young chidlren are involved ( 4-year-old Lee) and second children need to be taught to never go with a stranger to his car.
Although Lee had initially said no to going with Dodd, when Dodd gave him his hand he took it, probably on instict.
Children trust adults because adults are supposed to protect them, not hurt them & in the case of Dodd, he didn't look like the scary stranger that kids tend to picture when told not to speak to strangers.
Dodd was finally caught because there was one six- year-old that was brave enough fight & cause a scene that led to his capture.
Apparently his mother had taught him this & that saved his life & the lives of many, many other children.
But I must mention that this six year old was alone in a men's bathroom at the movies & that was the reason that the abduction attempt was able to be performed.

I am aware that these are very extreme cases, very tragic, sad, & disturbing.
It actually took an extra long to write this post, not only because of the research, but because these stories are very difficult to read, especially if you have kids.
But I believe that the point has to be made that even extreme cases could have been avoided if some basic mistakes hadn't been made.

I think the most important thing to mention is that a lot of criminals that have performed crimes against children did not begin with strange children, they did not begin murdering them, they began molesting early on with kids that they knew & that trusted them, they probably even knew their parents, maybe were even close.

I will quote something from the crime library because I think it expresses the point I'm trying to make.
"Children are more likely to be sexually abused or hurt by someone they know, including a relative, than by a stranger. While Dodd became known as a stranger abductor, he began by molesting kids in his own family, and later, children of acquaintances.
The vast majority of his victims were children that knew him and, and in some cases, whose parents knew him. Dodd preferred to molest a child that knew and trusted him, and only began abducting unknown children when the ones he knew were no longer available. “I don’t think I could have done it if I’d have known them,” he said of his murder victims."

That's why its important that something be done about abuse early on & not left as a phase that may or may not go away, because the life of small children depend on it.
So there are some basic points that need to be made & most of them are expressed above but it wont hurt to make a list. ( this list has been adapted from a list from the crime library.com)

1. Never leave young children alone in public places, even if that means the apartment hallway, if its not your home its a public place.

2. When you are in doubt of a situation involving a child & an adult...speak up, you just might save a child's life.

3. Parents should always go with their kids to public restrooms...ALWAYS!!

4. Parks & arcades are the "waterholes" for pedophile predators, never think that its a safe place for young children to be alone. They should always be accompanied by at least one adult.

5. Do not leave your children home alone & if you have to for some emergency, have some basic & defined rules of how they should behave. Example: lock all doors, do not open for anyone, do not tell anyone know they are alone etc...

6. If a child gets lost in a public place, make sure to prepare them before hand by telling them they should go for the checkout counter or office instead of wandering around.

7. A child should be taught to say "NO" to an adult who asks for "help". If an adult truly needs help, they should ask another adult.

8. Under no circumstances should a child get into a car with someone they don't know,or accept money, even if it's for a "job" from a stranger. ( I think that I will go a bit farther to say that a child should be taught to NEVER accept money from any adult for any reason)

9. The child should be prepared to kick & scream if a stranger grabs him or her, and yell "THIS IS NOT MY PARENT" loud & clear. Make a scene to get attention, even if it seams no one else is around.

10. Some people may not agree with me on this one, but I believe that kids under 16 should not babysit outside of the home & without close supervision. Even if they are their brothers & sisters. Something very easily can go wrong. Preteens are easily distracted & can leave the younger children alone for too long.

One very important point that was made by NCMEC, "Its situations, not strangers" that children need to watch out for. And here are some safety rules for parents & children that may help kids to watch out for those situations. ( crimelibray.com)

• If someone asks a child to share a “special secret,” they must say “NO” and tell a parent or schoolteacher.

• Children should tell a parent or teacher if someone wants to take a photo of them.

• Children should not allow anyone to touch a part of their body that a bathing suit would cover, and children should never touch anyone else in the “bathing suit” areas.

• Parents need to inform their kids never to accept a present from anyone without first telling them.

• If daycare is necessary, ask if criminal checks are routinely run on employees. In finding a babysitter, personal references are best, but if not available, ask the sitter for references, and check them.

• Watch for an adult or teenager who is paying extra attention to your child, or giving inappropriate gifts.

If we follow some basic safety rules & precautions, our children will be a lot safer. It might not always seem like the convenient thing to do for the parents, much less the easy thing, but we will be much better off if we stay true to these rules. Not to mention how better off our children will be.
We always need to be with our children, they are helpless without us & we need to teach them how they can do their part in protecting themselves as well.

James T. Walsh said that mankind's most basic duty is to protect the innocent. And I couldn't agree more, as adults we need to always be alert to protect the ones that can't do it on their own & that is most true about children.
Please don't let a child pay for your failure to do something.

Why kids don't talk.

As a parent you sometimes wish that it were easier to communicate with your kids, and sometimes it can be frustrating when you can't. But as the adult we should try everything to communicate because your kids safety depends on it.
Don't think that your kids are just being rebellious when they don't talk to you, remember they are kids & even up to adolescence are still growing, their brains are still developing & certain important parts of their brains are still being formed.
Their judgment is sometimes impaired by this & they might find other things more important than telling you about any form abuse that may be occcuring.

According to statistics, in most of the physical abuse cases, the abuse is done by the parents or caretakers of the children.
A child in this situation may never get the help they needs because their own parents & people that should be caring for them are the ones that are mistreating them.
They feel alone & rejected & they usually think that they deserve it because they did something wrong & therefore never tell anyone.
Their self-esteem is so low that they don't think that there is any other way that their life can be & they spend their life trying to please their abusers.
In these situation there have been cases in which the child defends & protects the abuser because of the codependency that they have formed, the child feels that they are only worth something if the abuser approves of them.
These are the difficult cases in which someone from the outside must step in & do something.

In the cases when a child is being physically abused by someone in the family but not necessarily their parents, then the child needs to have a good communication with their parents in order for them to open up.
If they aren't talking it might be because they are scared that the abuse may get worse if they expose the person & their parents don't believe them. Its important to always give your child the benefit of the doubt when faced with this kind of problem.

When the case is that of someone totally unrelated to the child, then it will probably be easier for the child to talk.
Depending on the case the child may offer the information their own, but if its a teacher or a coach & they have to see them daily then they might need a little prodding from you.
Most of the time it's fear or guilt that keeps them from talking.
Fear that they may cause the abuser to turn his rage against them if he is caught & thus get beaten worse & guilt because they may think that they were bad or did something to deserve it as many abusers make the children think.

Sexual abuse is probably the hardest thing for a child to talk about for a lot of factors. One is fear of getting in trouble with the abuser & also fear of getting in trouble with the people that they tell for the abuse, because of the guilt that it may have been their fault that it happened in the first place.
There is also the embarrassment factor, children feel embarrassed about sexual abuse.
Children very much care what people think & say, it might sound strange but kids are very embarrassed when they are sexually abused because of the fear that people may think that they wanted it or caused it in any way.
The sexual predator usually uses a form of seduction technique, a way of convincing their victim, these techniques make the abuser feel less guilty & in his sick mind he convinces himself that the child agreed to the abuse & maybe even led him on. And this idea is usually passed on to the child.
Let me say something on the subject of the child that is most likely to be sexually abused in my opinion.
First let me state that it can happen to any child, but there are children with a certain type of character that may be the ones that are targeted the most by pedophiles.
A trusting, timid & overall sweet child may be one of the "perfect" targets. Why?? Because they are easier to convince & easier to make them keep quiet.
This being said, the idea that they were willing partners may be an idea that is planted on the poor children's minds & therefore they feel embarrassed & NEVER tell.
To help children like this open up may be a long tiresome process, but its very important that they talk, not only to stop the abuse but so they don't take that guilt to adulthood. This kind of thing may cause grave problems as an adult.

Emotional & psychological abuse are probably the types of abuse that may get overlooked completely & sadly the types of abuse many people are imposing on children without even knowing that its abuse. Its a cycle passed on from parent to offspring. How many times have you heard " they raised me like this & that is why I raise my kids like this". People often & erroneously think that emotional & psychological abuse are a form of discipline & that is the way to keep kids in line.
Sometimes there are 2 victims in this kind of abuse & yes, one of them is the abuser. He is a victim of ignorance, not always but a lot of times they don't even know that what they are doing is incorrect.
A lot of times they are just following their parents footsteps & therefor never end the cycle of abuse from generation to generation. Most likely than not a child may never talk about this kind of abuse. You may know about it through some comment they might make, that refers to the abuse as something normal.
But there is also the emotional & psychological abuser that knows that its wrong & does it just to manipulate the children. But the same applies, kids come to think that its normal & that they deserve it or simply that that's the way it is in every household & so they don't address the matter as abuse.
Probably the best shot you get of hearing about this form of abuse is if the child refers to it as something normal in their household through an innocent comment.
These cases will probably not hold when it comes to doing something legally, but you can get close to the child & explain that that is not the right way to behave & maybe even get close to the parents to help them with their problem. Of course TACT is a key element here. Do not accuse or rebuke, be understanding & polite.
But whatever you do, keep the child in mind, never think that the child is better off without their parents (except in the case of sexual abuse).
They can get help & so can their parents, remember that parents whether they are with you or not, are an integral part of your growth as a person & we need to protect that parent- child bond as well.
Put children into safety physically, psychologically & emotionally.

Ignorance, Laziness and Fear

When some of my friends read my "What we can do” post, they said that they were expecting little more, maybe details , maybe a real punch line.
I guess being it the first time I write on the subject it’s a little difficult to get into details & sometimes more difficult trying to find another punch line except that we have to do something to make it stop.
Sometimes people need gory details to wake up to the reality that a lot of kids are living & sometimes people need something to move them into action.
The truth is that the gory details have been said, they are being said all the time on the news, on the net, in the papers, magazines & not to mention word of mouth. Almost everyone has heard of "someone" that "something" has happened to them.

Just to say that 700 people are being investigated in England for suspected child pornography on the net is more than enough.
A huge group of pedophiles from around the world could watch a live videos of a child being raped through these websites; they could see pictures & videos with children, some only months old being subjected to the worst type of abuse.
There are children who are being sold as sex slaves for $3 a night in Cambodia to foreigners that come from Europe & the U.S. and this is acceptable in this country & all the pedophiles through their websites are informed of this. These child prostitutes are often sold to their pimps by their own parents, step parents & caregivers.
This is even one of the ways in which the country gets financial income in the form of USD & EUR, which goes a much longer way than their national coin.

There are children in Mexico that are beaten by their caretakers, mostly parents & relatives & there is nothing defined completely in the Mexican constitution that that is illegal. The industrial city & probably the most wealthy in Mexico, Monterrey has the second place in statistics of the cities where there are more abuse cases. Even though a city may grow in wealth, industry & supposed education, (being the city where the best universities are) people still are ignorant on the subject of child abuse.

Also in Mexico there are kids that work in brick factories, children as old as 4 years old who haul bricks from morning to dusk, for less than the minimum wage. Obviously this is also a way for the country to have its own cheap labor, much like the wetback labor in the U.S.

This being said, it is obvious that the government in countries like Mexico & Cambodia don't see the urgent need to enforce the laws of child labor & child abuse. If you enforce one you have enforce the other & that would not benefit financially.
And there is more, in Russia there are no laws that protect children from abuse & these are among the children that are subject to the worst forms of abuse with no hopes for help. Japanese & Chinese children are sold & exported to different European countries so they can become sex slaves of some sick pervert.
The list goes on folks & there very little being done about it.

I think that we can make our society a safer place for our kids & an unsafe place for child abusers but that needs education on the subject, getting off our butts, doing something and most of all loosing the fear that we may have of exposing a crime.
In many countries where this is a main problem the culture in those countries is a very conservative hush-hush culture, where people prefer to keep appearances even though someone is suffering because of it, even themselves. But these are innocent kids that only have our voices, and someone needs to speak for them.

There are some main negative tendencies within people that have to be addressed & changed in order for this to happen, one of them is Ignorance.
Ignorance can be very dangerous when it comes to protecting our kids, ignorance can cause death. Being informed can save your life & especially the life of your kids.
Children are dying daily because of ignorance, that of their parents, caregivers & even doctors. Ignorance has to be fought by giving more importance to education of the individual, even if that means addressing embarrassing, conflicting, and polemic subjects. Caring more about what’s important, your child's life & less about what isn't, what people may say.

There are people that are ignorant & then there are the ones that want to be ignorant, they aren't but they are too lazy to do anything about it. They see the problem, they know its wrong, but they don't have time or (according to them) the strength to do anything about it.
These people are in my mind accomplices of the abuse that these kids suffer.
Because they know what is wrong, because they know what can happen when a child is left in those circumstances & yet they do nothing, not even a small attempt, because of laziness.

Then there is the worst of all; fear. Fear is one of the main reasons that people do nothing, fear the they may look bad, fear of making a mistake, fear of exposing someone that may cause you harm, fear that nothing will be done about it. There are hundreds of things that can happen, or go wrong when you expose abuse, but if you do something there are hundreds of things that can go well also. When you are fearful of what people may say, you are caring more about your reputation than the life of a child.
If you are fearful of making a mistake, the best you can do is inform yourself & if a mistake is made on your part, you can rest with the assurance that you did something & making a mistake is the risk you must take to save a child's life. It is much more of an offence to leave the life if a kid at risk than to accuse some grown person of abuse. But the more informed you are, smaller the chances are of making these mistakes.
If you are fearful of exposing someone that may want retribution later & may cause your family harm, then your fear is the one that I feel most empathy with. There is nothing that can guarantee that you will come out completely untouched by the whole matter, but that is also a price that has to be paid.

If you are fearful that nothing will be done about it by the authorities, that is a very real fear, but something is being done by you & that is what counts.
It may seem like there are a lot of risks in helping children, but when you consider the horrible things they are being subjected to, then your risk in entirely too small in comparison.

What we can do.

I have been reading & researching about a very very difficult subject. Child abuse.
It is a difficult subject for hundreds of different reasons. I think the worst & most difficult would be the fact that a lot of abused children are abused by people close to them.
As a parent myself I can understand the frustration that people go through when trying to raise a hyperactive toddler, let a lone 3 or more. I am aware of the frustration & I believe that it really caught me by surprise.
But I know that no form of frustration can ever be an excuse to harm your child. Counting to 10 or even to 20 is a very helpful tool out of a frustrating confrontation with your child.
Of course I am talkig about physical abuse because of the stress if being a parent or for whatever other reasons people do it.
But obviously there are other forms of abuse that are the hardest ones to talk about, and which are also in many cases done by people close to the children.
Sexual abuse is probably the most difficult form of abuse that there is to discuss. And that I think is one of the main reasons that kids are left in a situation of this kind of abuse, because adults that may have helped them chose to ignore it out of embarrassment or fear of confronting another adult with this kind of subject, especially if they are the suspects.
I think it very important to not leave any doubts, even if this means losing a friendship or exposing a family member. You can reduce the risk of making a mistake by informing yourself & educating yourself on the subject. If you know the signs & symptoms of child abuse you can act accordingly.
There is no point in spewing out accusations when you are not educated on the subject at least a little, because many abusers are people with alibis & excuses, they know how to manipulate people & how to hide their crime.
Crime, yes I said crime, because it is a terrible crime to hurt innocent, helpless children in any way, its a crime against humanity. Because our children are the humanity of the future.
I think that people who abuse kids don't value life & that is why they feel they can harm a helpless child without thinking of the consequences & without realizing what it makes them, a criminal, a pedophile ( in sexual abuse cases), a monster!

But I think that the people that turn a blind eye, or act like it isn't happening or that don't speak up, are just as guilty of the crime.
In lots of cases people just have a doubt, they don't know for sure, but that is when you must educate yourself and then do something about it if the symptoms comply with the case that you doubt about.
It is unacceptable to have pedophiles running free, doing as they please, receiving aid from each other, forming groups & associations, having their own newsletters, magazines & websites!
What are we doing to protect our children?? We don't need to be part of some organization to do this, all we need to do is speak up. for Christ sakes SPEAK UP!!!

Defend our children from those monsters, protect them from the brutality of the minds of these fiends. I know that many of them were victims of the same form of abuse when they were kids, but that does not make it right, it makes it doubly wrong.
I think that more education on the subject can save many precious lives.
Lives that will be ruined otherwise, because those types of experiences if you survive them affect your life forever. They scar you & unlike our visible scars, they hurt whenever they are remembered.

Lets not be part of the ignorant crowd who realizes too late that something could have been done, lets not turn a blind eye to the suffering of children, even though they aren't yours .
Lets inform ourselves & others, lets inform our children so they can defend themselves.
Lets be close to them always to protect them & make them feel secure enough to tell us anything.
Lets keep a watchful eye out for ALL the children; they are all innocent & helpless, they are all our responsibility.

http://www.stopitnow.org/howcan.html