Mrs. Wallman:

ALWAYS trust your instints. It doesn't matter if everyone or anyone tells you you are being paranoid. Trust your instinct as a mother. One thing I would like to point out to all parents ou there:

Sometimes we are so concerned about keeping our children safe from strangers, we forget the dangers that are right under our noses. Remember, sometimes danger is NOT a stranger.

The more I talk to moms the more I believe what you're saying, DP. We trust these family friends or neighbors because we think they love our kids so much. But if you read the stories about pedophiles, they ARE the family friends and neighbors!

Statistics show that in most cases the abuse comes from someone WELL KNOWN to the child and family. I do think it to be overzealous to assume every person who shows intrest in your children to be pedophiles. That just shows that you live in fear and worse than that you teach it to your children. I'm not saying that you should blindly trust everyone you encounter, but when you make ignorant comments like "My sister has a neighbor who is an older gentleman, and he's shown a lot of interest in her young son. He recently offered to babysit. I told her the guy is a pedophile. Obviously!" its just reiterates what I've already typed. It couldn't be as innocent as he is a grandfather who doesn't see his grandkids often could it? I won't tell you how to parent of live your life, but it saddens me to see somoeone who has to resort to living in constant fear of the unknown and then pass that on to her children.

I don't let my daughter know that I'm keeping her away from someone because he might molest her. I agree with you that it's not good to raise a child in fear. On the other hand, she showed us this weekend that after this stranger chatted with her, she no longer put him in the category of stranger that she's been warned about and educated about in school. She just thinks he's "Dan.'' That's dangerous. One of the main jobs you have as a parent is to protect your child from harm. So I'm not giving the Grandfatherly Neighbors or "Dans'' in our lives a chance to prove me wrong, or right.

Charlie,

As a parent who lived through the nightmare of having a child who was a victim of abuse, I can tell you that I wish a million times over I had paid attention to that little voice in my head.

A parent has instincts for a reason, and better a little too cautious, than to look back and wonder why you didn't do more. It makes me sad that there are parents out there, who think they are being paranoid, while their child is suffering. What would you rather have?

There's a good book - Protecting the Gift by Gavin de Becker - it says exactly the same thing - trust that little voice in your head, it's there for a reason!

Interesting. When it comes to terrorism, we constantly reminded by the government, media and civil rights groups that most Muslims are peaceful and only a few engage in violence.

When it comes to adult males however, fear is politically correct. And then we wonder why it's so hard to get men to take equal part in nuturing children.

To put it another way, how can you be sure YOUR husband, father, brother, son etc. is not a pedophile?

Why not just be honest with strangers you encounter and let them know, "You know, I'm a protective parent, and I'm wary about my children in certain situations." A trustworthy person would express agreement with that sentiment.

Don't live in fear just don't trust any MALE near your kids.

Teenage boys are dangerous. Keep them away from your young girls.

Brittany. You are a nutjob.
I have two teenage daughters and a son. I like kids so long as they are not screaming babies. Now I have to worry about being friendly to acq. kids, as they might think I'm a disgusting, sick pedophile? WTF is this country coming to???

Here's something else I thought of, Brittany: Your biographical information says you have a son as well. Are you equally paranoid about gay men having contact with him?

TRincon:

I think you are missing the point. It is not about paranoia but about not turning a blind eye to things, when your gut tells you something just is not right. It is not to target males in particular, but only about paying attention to that little voice inside all of us, whatever the gender may be.

I totally agree with Brittany. I didn't trust anyone around my kids when they were growing up. I kept my eyes on everyone near them male and female. Now that they are adults I can relax a little bit. I still caution them when they go out.

A little common sense goes a long way to calm paranoia and hysteria.

That is all.

Creedanze:

No one is paranoid or hysterical. That is what we are talking about, using good common sense, whether it be a mother or father.

Fact: Less than one percent of child molestations are perpetrated by strangers.
Fact: Not every stranger is a perv.
Fact: Putting too much emphasis on the "dangerous stranger" makes your child that much more vulnerable to the person most likely to victimize them: Someone they know and trust.

Mr. Wallace:

Agreed. See above unpublished book.

Some men like little kids, right? Yeah, take Michael Jackson for instance!

DP, the problem I have with you saying that its about using good common sense is that hysterics have caused the perception of what is "good common sense" to shift toward being more fearful and you don't acknowledge that fact.

Here is an example of the shift: Before Adam Walsh was kidnapped and killed, most people's perception of that sort of heinousness was crafted by the killing and kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. To me, the Lindbergh baby's story is much more scary and unpreventable. But, because it happened during an era where Americans spent less time revisiting past events, the story was not allowed to excessively linger and the fear it generated was allowed to wane.

When Adam Walsh was kidnapped and killed, CNN was also just starting. To further ingrain and repeat the bad news of his story in our minds, his father started a national crime show. Therefore, while the incidence of kidnapping and murder, as a ratio of our population, was more or less static since the Lindbergh baby, our perception of the occurrences of such heinous crimes, based on constant reminding by 24 hr. news and weekly to twice weekly crime shows, was that it was becoming epidemic.

Now we are in an era of constant updates to old news and pointless discussions about stale information, yet we believe ourselves to be more informed. Yes, we are more informed about the periphery of a story, but that has not translated into being more informed about actual threats and dangers based on the statistical possibility of their occurrence. Because we are sort of ignorant about that, we allow that ignorance and fear to be transmitted to our children like a virus, shaping their worldview to fit our generally unfounded concerns. We put no faith in our ability to teach our children how to handle themselves in a crisis or unpleasant situation--instead, we don't let them out of our sight, hover over their playground interactions, piggy-back with them through every experience, and make our best efforts to sanitze their contact with this dirty world. Some children may find comfort in this--to most, parents like these seem like the Gestapo and these kids can't get a minute alone to come up with their own thoughts, ideas, and personality.

It would be less pathetic if it were not for the fact that most of the parents with children they think are being targeted by pedophiles are the ones who were given the MOST freedom to roam--a freedon they now deny their children because of their generally unfounded fear of losing them or having them get "violated", which has now come to include their crazy uncle giving them as stack of his old Playboys.

I say teach your children how to handle themselves and then trust that they will be at least as good as you are at dealing with problems as they arise. That way, when you decide to interfere based on your fears, you will know it's because you think of yourself as being inadequate and not because you have good information that your child can't handle it.

Big Daddy:

I hear you making a couple different points in your post.I must respectfully disagree with a couple.

You make a good point regarding the Lindburgh baby, and we must note that legislation was changed making kidnapping a federal crime after this tradgedy. Since that point, public awareness has been raised, not to cause hysteria or paranoia, but for parents to realize the very real dangers that do exist, with both men and women, strangers and the person you would trust with your life. Shows like AMA have resulted in over 1000 criminals off our streets. How could that be a bad thing?

Furthermore, unless you have been a victim of a predator as my family has you will never understand fear. This fear is not a bad thing, it only makes me more conscientious as a parent of "red flags". They are sometimes there, they are real and they are justified. I am not "inadequate" as a parent, I pay better attention now. Every parent should temper independance with parenting, because that is our job.

Big Daddy,
Ever see those shows where kids are "tested" to see how they actually respond in situations - they don't do very well - no matter how many conversations the parents may have had with them. My abuse started before I was 3 so I doubt anything my parents would have told me would have helped. They trusted me with my grandfather (who was a cop) - big mistake. PS Giving a child even soft porn is considered "grooming" and that funny uncle has further intentions...
Either way, err on the side of caution - who cares if the neighbor misses his grandkids - maybe there is a reason they don't let him see them. He can always go through a FBI check and volunteer in a supervised situation.

Re: "Less than one percent of child molestations are perpetrated by strangers."

That doesn't surprise me. A career child molester would be too smart to strike on a child he's just met. I read news accounts of these guys getting caught, and the response of people who know them is, "I can't believe it, he was such a nice man." Sometimes the gut instinct doesn't kick in when it should.

They may become schoolteachers, clergymen, mother's boyfriends and stepfathers. In short, they know how to not be "strangers."

Teach your kids to not keep secrets and teach them to run and scream in certain situations, but otherwise don't be over-protective.

Except when necessary such as a babysitter, children should not be alone with any teenager or adult unless you know them well enough to trust them with your kids. This goes for both genders - about 1 out of 5 or 6 registered sex offenders is female.

Having said that, you do your kids a disservice by not allowing them to hang out with adults, even adults who seem "more interested than your average adult." Just make sure it's always with other people around. "It takes a village" is a good philosophy.

When you do have to leave your kid with an adult, make sure he's either bonded and insured/part of an agency, someone you know very very well, or someone who comes with references you trust implicitly. If possible, use a sitter that is babysitting multiple children. Children make good tattletales, and perverts know that so it can be a deterrent.

TRincon wrote: "They may become ... mother's boyfriends and stepfathers...."

Bingo. A wolf in sheep's clothing is only successful if he is indistinguishable from the sheep until the last minute. This means unless you are going to shelter your kids from life, you can't protect them completely, and any attempt to protect them will out of necessity hurt them by denying them healthy relationships with quality adults.

Teach them to recognize and react to unhealthy behavior, and teach them not to keep secrets. If a pedophile senses they will run and tell and never "breaks character" as a sheep, then by definition your child will come to no harm. If he does take off his disguise, your child should immediately recognize that something is out of the ordinary, run away, and tell you or another adult about it.

90+% of people who act like "very nice men" are just that - very nice men. Exposing your kids to men and women who really are nice day in and day out will not only improve their well-being, it will help them recognize unusual, malevolent behavior.

i think there are some very paranoid bigots in here...most of the recent publicized cases of child molesting involved teachers...and most were woman molesting boys

In this day and age any guy who shows undue attention to a child or minor should give pause for thought. Take away the so called "paranoid" response from the parent for a moment. It is each and every adults responsibility to understand and act accordingly when it comes to children. Adults should never put themselves in positions of compromise with our kids. The guy drinking the beer at 9am focusing on a minor is not someone I want in my gene pool. We put way too much pressure on children who cant fatham what a truly bad guy is capable of. Kids cant wrap their mind around the fact that in a split second, some freak will put a plastic bag over their head and proceed to tear their insides out. As graphic as that may sound, it happens every day. Adults need to grasp the concept of a child's personal space and the judicial system needs to do the job we are paying them to do, to keep repeat offenders (sexual or otherwise) away from the rest of us.
As distasteful as it is, there is no more "being too paranoid" when it comes to our children.

Big Daddy:I say teach your children how to handle themselves and then trust that they will be at least as good as you are at dealing with problems as they arise.
You sure wrote a long comment to say nothing: How do you teach a 7 year old to fight a 190lb guy who is on a mission to pick that kid up and disappear? You cant! Thats why they are kids for God's sake. you want to infer that kids have some form of inner radar that will kick on when some freak who has dangerous intentions comes near them. Its doesnt happen like that. Children cannot grasp the concept that some freak wants to use them to "get off" or worse. By the time many children have a sense of danger it is way too late.Many offenders are going after younger and younger children (2-5) because they think those kids wont retain what is happening to them, and guess what? they dont.Some poor excuse for DNA will corner some baby and put that child on their laps and do it hundreds of times given the opportunity. We have some real pieces of work trolling our streets and our families, "opportunity" is the keyword. The further we keep these pervs away from our kids, the less opportunity, which means less abuse anyway you look at it. Quit expecting our children to carry the burden of "good touch, bad touch" if that was truly working we wouldnt be having the abuse numbers we have. We want our children to grow up confident and well rounded. Well guess what? The more of these freaks you take off our streets for longer period of times the better chances our kids will have to do just that. Revolving them in and out of our system is costing more than stiffer and longer sentences and keeping a shorter leash on them when they do get out.That argument "they serve their time" is a joke..these guys should be sitting in a 5x7 not complaining about the distances to parks they have to live by.

Oh and while most of you slept snug in your beds last night! 3 more offenders either floated up on our shores or crossed over the Florida line last night..Florida has 51,000 sex offenders that we "know of" and the numbers get bigger every year, because this state doesnt have the will to deport those who have committed sexual crimes against our citizens and or stop them from moving into our state after committing crimes in another. Start telling the Grownups "Law Enforcement" to start acting on those expensive mission statements they all have on their homepages..for as much money as every citizen pays for various policing agencies, Local county, state and federal we should not be dealing with the numbers of heinous crimes that we do. Its insane..

It is common sense that will prevent a lot from happening. Pay attention to your child. What I have seen is too many children & teens with "absent parents" looking for an adult, any adult, to pay attention to them. The guy across from our house is a good example. His wife travels a lot so he has been primary since their daughter was 2-3 years old. There are no rules in their home so the daughter, now 12, resides in the popular house. That is the home where the kids can run in and out of without fear of parental rules. Dad sits and drinks and leers at the blossoming teenagers during those times he is not peeping over fences or in a strip joint. Of course, the teenage girls disappear when Mom is in town.
Anybody else think we have a perv across the street?
I won't let my son even associate with the boys for fear of accusations, etc

"90+% of people who act like "very nice men" are just that - very nice men. Exposing your kids to men and women who really are nice day in and day out will not only improve their well-being, it will help them recognize unusual, malevolent behavior."

Davidwr: Your above statement is why pedophiles get away with the horrible crimes they commit. First of all I don't know where you get your percentages from, but if an adult wants to hang out exclusively with your child, and that adult does something to that child, there is a 90% or greater chance that child WILL NOT tell you. I don't care what you have taught them, how good a relationship you think you have, they DO NOT tell. Pedophiles are very good at what they do and will threaten, lie, or make them feel guilty so the child keeps quiet.

They may recognize the behavior, but that's not good enough. I'm sorry but if an adult should want to exclusively spend time with my child, I am going to wonder why.

Our diffent points of view bear testamant to our life experiences. We have been through hell and back because of a pedophile and maybe you have not.

Well, 50 years ago I was nearly molested by our dear grandfatherly neighbor, who was "the kindest man" and the school janitor (he was well respected as part of the school community). He offered to help me with my math after school. So I went over and eventually he wanted me to sit on his lap. Wierd and uncomfortable, but ok (I was 10)...then he wanted to kiss me when I got the problems right. NOT OK...the voice was really loud in my head then and I got scared and left. I don't recall telling my parents, just refused to go back. Everyone loved Uncle Walt. As I grew older and learned about people called pediphiles, I wish I had spoken up and maybe saved other girls from being molested by him. So I believe that kids have, and need to learn to listen to, that voice in there heads, as well.

DP--I'm sorry you and your family were the victims of a pedophile--I am. But that ony goes to prove my point that your perception of the magnitude and breadth of the problem (men preying upon young children--I'm presuming the predation did not involve a woman preying sexually minor children) is amplified because of your experience. I understand that you genuinely do not want anyone else to suffer the misfortune that you have and your warnings are an effort to keep people vigilant so that they do not become victims.

My statements are aimed at finding a way to do that without turning our country into a police state and having parents live in some state of constant artificially generated fear based on the anecdotes they hear instead of the real statistics and incidence of crime in their communities. According to your view, EVERY man is a potential sexual predator until proven innocent (I don't know if you also include women in your potential threat matrix). As a man, I find that assumption extremely insulting and I do not want to teach our male or female children anything of the sort. I think most men feel the same way on the issue of teaching children to be suspicious of all men because one of them was a pedophile.

The way you banish unfounded fears and perceptions is with factual information and truth--but you have to be willing to believe facts and truths in order for them to be applied to reduce your fears, founded or unfounded.
From your comments, it sounds like you're not at a place where you can do that just yet.

Big Daddy:

Thank you for your empathy, but the factual information and truth you think I need to seek is this:

There is 1 forcible sex offense every 49 minutes.

There is 1 forcible rape every hour 28 minutes.

These facts and more, coupled with my own experience are all I need to know.

The place I am in makes me more aware of what is out there. We do not live in fear, but I am not so trusting now. I no longer live in a cloud where I think it can not happen to me or my family.

I ask of you, please don't bury your head in the sand, ignorance is not bliss.

http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/Content/getdoc/e623bae3-dc43-42ef-a1f5-4c2e504a93cb/crime-clock-2008.aspx

Valigator--You're being sort of hysterical and that's what my comment was intended to highlight--how hysterics and paranoia created by a constant retelling of a bad story clouds the mind's ability to reason and create a crime response that is based on real facts and information.

You include a story about someone being suffocated with a bag and having their innards removed--that simply does not happen every day, every week, or every month in ANY US State. There are no crime stats to back up that assertion nor are there police reports that support your claim. There hasn't even been a news story about such heinous activity to give credence to your fear. The biggest news stories about sexual predators in Florida are the Catholic priests who molest their altar boys and women teachers who molest their students. There will always be the Lolita story about a male teacher and a teenaged student (male or female), but it is not that widespread. The story about the kidnapping predator in California should be seen as a possible, but isolated event--it does not happen with enough regularity to warrant the amount of attention it receives in relation to other more probable crimes that hurt our kids.

The biggest threat to our kids down here is not a sexual predator, but another kid or older person with a gun or knife. THAT IS WHAT IS KILLING AND HURTING OUR KIDS HERE IN SOUTH FLORIDA!!! So if you want to engage in hyperbole engineered to keep people safe from a REAL threat to a significant percentage of the population, you should get shrill about gun and knife violence and the ACCESS these kids have to guns and knives their parents, older siblings, or relatives purchased or otherwise obtained.

My problem with the focus people put on pedophiles is that it becomes a red herring that takes their attention away from the most probable deadly threat, which is your kid getting stabbed or shot at an after school fight at the bus stop with other kids that don't go to their school. Yes, they have to be wary of old Uncle Walt with the candy jar across the street, but let's put it in perspective with the other threats they face on a daily basis.

DP--I know you will think this is being facetious, but bear with me. Of those statistics that you quoted from FDLE, how many involved pre-teen children where the perpetrator was convicted of the alleged crime? How many involved a minor teen engaged ion consensual sexual activity? Lastly, how many involve false reporting?

My feeling is not that people are not pervs and sexual predation never happens. My feeling is that the type of sexual predation of which you are most fearful (men preying on pre-teens) happens enough to make it a POSSIBILITY and not a PROBABILITY. If the statistics were actually separated out based on accusation v. convictions; dismissals v. nolle prosequi v. no contest pleas, I think the stats would show that the type of crime you are most fearful of is rarer than the media leads us to believe.

That's all I have been saying--that our perception of the incidence of sexual predation in pre-teen children is greater than the actual statistics showing the occurrence of those crimes. Unfortunately we are people and for many of us,the perception becomes the reality. I just think that's dangerous because it draws our attention away from the statistically proven real threats our children face. That and we smother our children with so much protective love that they won't be able to take care of themselves if we are not here.

I don't know and you don't either. What I do know is it happened in my family, to my child, and that makes it more than a possiblity. I do not smother my kids, but as I stated in an earlier post I temper giving them independance to keeping a watchful over who wants to keep company with them and why, because that is what a parent should do. I am sorry, but no amount of statistics you throw at me can trump personal tradgedy and that trumps everything.

DP wrote "if an adult wants to hang out exclusively with your child, and that adult does something to that child, there is a 90% or greater chance that child WILL NOT tell you."

By far most nice men do not want to hang out *exclusively* with any particular child, except perhaps blood relatives or God-children. Nice men see it as a duty and a privilege to be part of the village that raises the child, but they don't look to hang out *unsupervised* with kids the aren't related with or their God-children. In fact, in today's pedophile paranoia, fear of a false allegation drives many nice men causes many otherwise-responsible men to abdicate their duty to their village and leave the job of being a caring role model to others. If others do not step up to the plate, the child suffers. I wrote elsewhere that except for carefully vetted people, your kids should not be *alone* with other adults or teens. They SHOULD be encouraged to be with other adults, teens, and older children in group settings and public places, where nobody would dare try anything illicit. Cockroaches hate the dark.

Bank tellers learn to spot a counterfeit not by studying counterfeits but by studying genuine money. They work day in day out with the genuine article and when something is "off" they sense it and take a closer look. The same is true with kids and adults in their lives. The more caring adults in their lives, and - up to a point - the more time they spend with those adults, the easier it will be for them to spot an adult who is doing someting unusual enough to go talk to mom and dad about.

Here a link to several lists of "developmental assets" for children. You've probably seen these or something similar before. Throughout the lists there are themes. One of the common themes is positive adult role models. Another theme is the presence of caring adults in the child's life. http://www.search-institute.org/assets/forty.htm

"We have been through hell and back because of a pedophile and maybe you have not." You have my sympathy and my hope that you and your child have recovered or soon will recover enough to live something resembling a normal, happy life. I'm not naive - I realize some people never recover enough to live a normal life. I hope you and yours are not one of them.

Remember: By far, adult men love kids. By far, adult men do not want to hurt kids.

davidwr:

We are not talking about "nice men". We are talking about men who are pedophiles, also disguised as your husband, brother, father or the nice man down the street.

"By far, adult men love kids. By far, adult men do not want to hurt kids."

But some do.

DP wrote "We are not talking about 'nice men.'"

Exactly - you can't tell the difference until the person does something to reveal his true intentions.

Your choice is either to shelter your kids from all men good and bad, to allow good and bad men limited, public/supervised/videotaped/security-camera-monitored access, or to allow all good and bad men complete access, OR spend a lot of time and energy scrutinizing every man who will get above a certain "level" of access.

Those men who you allow enough access to do harm to your kids should get scrutiny - to do otherwise puts them at unnecessary risk without a benefit that offsets the risk.

As for the many who will only interact with them in a public or group setting where they dare not try anything, you can either say "no, sorry, I don't allow my kids to interact with men who I don't know very very well" or you can open it to everyone. If you do the former, you will cheat your children out of many healthy relationships, and they will be the worse off for it. This is one case where the "better safe than sorry" approach may benefit a very few but it hurts everyone else and the overall cost is bad for society.

"But some do." - this is why vetting is needed for men - and women - who will be left alone with kids long enough to try anything unhealthy. Its also why kids need age-appropriate training if what is and is not acceptable adult behavior and to tell mom and dad if anything unusual happens. Kids should also be trained to call 911, run, and even kick a guy where it hurts or bite if necessary. Of course, they should also be told that such measures are "just in case" and that most children will never need to use such escape mechanisms.

Vet your boyfriends before you let them alone with your kids for very long. Play inlaws on a case-by-case basis. You probably know your own parents and siblings well enough to trust them or know you can't. Vet your neighbors. Vet your babysitters and day care centers. You can rely on your school district to vet teachers. You *may* be able to rely on your day care center's accreditation board to vet its employees. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and Big Brothers and Big Sisters vet and/or insist on 2+ adults at a time when kids are around, but not all youth programs vet well enough or have 2+ adult policies.

Again, the less opportunity you give a person to be *alone* with your kid for long enough to do anything untoward, the less you have to vet. If the only interactions are public or in a group setting, little if any vetting is necessary.

davidwr:

I agree with what you are saying, but again must assume that you have not gone through this situation in your family. Do I allow my children to interact with adults? Yes. Do I put the person that wants to through hell and back because of what happened? Yes. It is because of a mans actions that I sometimes lay awake at night to make sure my children are safe. It is because of a mans actions that I can no longer trust people. This was a man I trusted, a man I shared a child with. Our life experiences shape the way we see the world and that includes adults. I will never again trust so blindly and will always be more thourough and cautious before I allow anyone access to my children.

You say " mom and dad if anything unusual happens". Once again I must inform you, as I stated in a previous post, that they DONT. If you don't beleive me, speak to a therapist or a trained proffesional. You can talk to your kids all day long, and the minute a pedophile gets their hands on them, they will not tell.

I respect what you are saying, but again no one knows how this changes your life, and how you view people, and sadly, it changes the way you view men,until it happens to you.

I'm sure many prospective pedophiles are PO'd that people preach awareness.
I'm yet to meet a normal man that wants to spend time with kids outside of a profession.
I have seen grown men hang out at parks dressed like skateboarders and even speaking the teens lingo to try and fit in and I can't help but think they are perverts, freaks, losers or drug dealers.
Also anybody calling themselves Big Daddy and then speaking out against pedophile awareness sends red flags up in my mind.
I can't help it. I hear Big Daddy and I picture a middle aged, fat bald guy trolling for little girls at a local soccer match.

Statistics from http://ssw.unc.edu/fcrp/fp/fp_v10n2/stats.htm :
*Statistics are "vastly underreported"
*Statistics show 1.2 per 1,000 children in 2003
*A 40% drop in substantiated reports from 1992 to 2000. "Researchers believe a real decline ... is responsible for this drop."

My comments:

Even if only 10% of victims make claims that are substantiated, that would mean 1.2% of kids and teens are victims in any given year, roughly 20% over the first 18 years of life. That's probably on the high side, as "vastly underreported" probabably means somewhere between 1 in 2 and 1 in 5 cases are reported and substantiated, not the straw-man 1 in 10 that I'm using here. If it was 1 in 5 reported and substantiated, then we are talking a 1 in 10 kids becoming victims before adulthood. If it's 1 in 2 reported and substantiated, then 24 out of 25 kids will reach adulthood without becoming a victim of sexual abuse.

In any case, whether the real number is 1 in 25 or 1 in 5, society needs to treat this as a public health problem and take reasonable steps, backed by science, to lower this number. We need to do this without reacting to fear or resorting to police-state tactics that make men afraid to become teachers and day-care workers and children afraid to hug their male Sunday School teachers or priests.

davidwr:

"society needs to treat this as a public health problem and take reasonable steps, backed by science, to lower this number"

Besides the fact that your link is outdated and irrelevant, what exactly are you hiding dehind the smoke and mirrors?

It was a lot of numbers, but how exactly are you going to prevent a sex offense by using science?

When I read your posts I get the impression of someone saying "Don't look over here, look over there" Scary.

As a person molested by a teenage young woman (I was 7 she was 19) I can tell you that women abuse boys to a much larger degree than is reported.

The response from my parents: "Mortified and shocked".

The response from everyone else "That wasn't abuse, just training."

Parents, take a close look at both sexes!