Safe Connections: A Parent's Guide to Protecting Young Teens from Sexual Exploitation

by Sandy K. Wurtele PhD

Overview

Concerned about keeping your young teen safe? It was much easier to protect our children from sexual harm when they were small and underfoot. Now that they're older, and making connections with others outside the home, what new information do we need to safeguard them from abuse? Sandy K. Wurtele offers wisdom on behalf of 10- to 15-year-olds in her latest book for parents on the subject of abuse prevention. Children in this age range present a unique challenge to-parents who want the richest, safest adolescent experience for their kids. That challenge is the combination of developing sexuality and drive for independence - without enough experience or brain development to always make good decisions! To keep your young teen as safe as you can from abuse: Learn what makes these kids particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Teach them how to recognize and avoid abusive adults or other teenagers as they become more interested romantically and sexually in other people. Learn to recognize if your teen is the abuser and how to get help for him or her. Teach your child about the dangers of sexting and exploitation by online predators and how to avoid both. While it might scare you to think about these dangers, knowledge can equip you and your teenager with the ability to avoid, or deal with, these problems. This will give you and your child confidence in meeting the challenges of this new developmental state.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781936903009
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	01/01/2012
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 5.60(h) x 0.20(d)

Read an Excerpt

Safe Connections

A Parent's Guide to Protecting Young Teens from Sexual Exploitation

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By Sandy K. Wurtele

Parenting Press, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Parenting Press, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-936903-11-5

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CHAPTER 1

What Makes Teens Vulnerable to Sexual Exploitation?

Adolescence is a time of many changes. Teens look, think, and act differently as they transform from children to adults. This chapter will briefly describe the physical changes happening in their bodies and brains during puberty so that you can understand why some teens find themselves in harmful situations.

Puberty 101

During puberty, kids' bodies don't simply grow; they morph. Within a few years, the physical changes turn boys into men and girls into women. Girls begin changing first, usually starting around age 10, with boys following one to two years later.

Under the influence of the sex hormones, girls' breasts develop and hips widen and they begin to menstruate around age 12. In boys, the testes and penis enlarge, chests expand, shoulders broaden, voices deepen (with the occasional squeak!), and the body takes on a muscular frame. Boys have their first ejaculation around age 13.

For both boys and girls, the biological and physical changes of puberty lead to a flood of emotions, most noticeably a new interest in romantic relationships and sex. Around age 10, both sexes begin to have sexual thoughts and feelings and attractions to others. Sex now seems exciting, fun, and very interesting.

Everyone Notices!

These changes signal to the youths and others that they are becoming sexually mature. No longer perceived as children, we treat teens differently when they begin to look like adults. An adolescent girl's emerging sexuality may become a source of concern for parents who sometimes respond by placing restrictions on her freedom. In contrast, parents often react to these changes in their sons by giving them more independence and freedom. Alarmingly, adults who are attracted to young developing bodies notice these changes too.

No Brakes!

Like their bodies, teenagers' brains are in the midst of huge growth spurts, especially in the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for resisting impulses, planning ahead, problem solving, and understanding consequences of one's actions. These cognitive changes unfold slowly, and continue to mature long after puberty is over. In fact, this part of the brain isn't fully developed until the early twenties. This means that teenagers' impulses and emotions develop several years before their abilities to control them.

During adolescence, the prefrontal cortex is in constant battle with the limbic system, the part of the brain that controls the raw emotions, including sex drive and sensation seeking. Those sex hormones running rampant in your adolescent's bloodstream fuel the limbic system and send it into overdrive, at the same time that their "brakes" (prefrontal cortex) aren't working. Your young teen's body is like an Indy 500 race car — turbo-charged engine, fueled by pedal-to-the-metal hormones, but racing without a skilled driver or a working set of brakes.

An overactive limbic system explains why teens seek out (usually with their friends) exciting and intense experiences, like the Dangerous Ds — Drinking, Driving, and Drugs. But why do they take sexual risks? Because they're on a quest — searching for self-identity; in particular, their own sexual identity.

Search for Sexual Identity

Adolescence is a time when identity issues — achieving a sense of self — are most crucial to development. During the teen years young people explore choices in love, work, and religious and political ideology. They strive to discover their identities and roles in life, and to answer the very important developmental question, "Who am I, apart from my parents?" They also struggle with the narrower question, "Who am I as a sexual person?" A sexual identity is an intrinsic part of a young person's self-definition. Sexual identity includes recognizing one's sexual preference — heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual — and a sense of one's attractiveness to others.

Romantic relationships provide many benefits for teens. First and foremost, teens date for fun and recreation. Dating also makes teens more popular with their peers. Romantic partners provide acceptance, companionship, and emotional comfort to weather the storm of adolescence. Dating helps teens explore their sexual identity and prepares them for adult romantic relationships. Through sexual relationships, teens learn how to manage physical and emotional intimacy.

Parenting Tips

1. Prepare yourself and your child for the changes. As they approach adolescence, tweens need to know about all the ways their bodies will change — physically, emotionally, spiritually, and cognitively. With teens maturing earlier compared to decades ago, it's important to begin these discussions early — at least by age 10. Some children need to be prepared even earlier, depending on their rate of development. There are plenty of great books and Web sites that can inform you and your teen.

2. Communicate your values. When you talk about their developing sexuality, share your values — those life principles that are important to you. Your values function as voices in their heads that help your teens make sexual decisions when you're not there. You might emphasize values such as staying safe, respecting yourself and others, appreciating personal boundaries (your own and others'), and avoiding sexual behaviors that endanger oneself or exploit others.

3. Be an "ask-able" parent. Encourage your children to come to you with questions or concerns. Model how to problem solve.

CHAPTER 2

A Parent's Nightmare: When Your Teen Is Sexually Abused

'Cause when you're fifteen and somebody tells you they love you

You're gonna believe them

And when you're fifteen, don't forget to look before you fall

Taylor Swift, "Fifteen"

As we discussed in chapter 1, the tween and early teen years bring a new interest in romantic relationships and sex. Unfortunately, some adults exploit teens' sexual curiosity and normal needs for affection, intimacy, and companionship. So that parents are informed about this type of exploitation, chapter 2 covers this topic in some detail.

How Often Does It Happen?

There is very limited research on how often adults sexually abuse teens. One national survey of students in grades 7 to 12 found that ten percent of girls and two percent of boys reported that adults had had sex with them.

Who Are the Abusers?

The biggest myth about childhood sexual abuse is that molesters are strangers. Instead, in almost all cases — ninety percent — the offender is someone the teen knows, including relatives, friends of the family, neighbors, and other adults who are in positions of authority. Authority figures can include members of the clergy, medical or mental health professionals, coaches, teachers, and employers. Sex offenders typically offend alone, and are mostly men, but also women, like the cases of female teachers sexually abusing their teenage male students.

Along with teachers, there have also been cases of male coaches sexually abusing teenage boys. In 1999, Sports Illustrated described several male coaches who were arrested for sexually abusing athletes involved in sports from baseball to wrestling. Coaches have also sexually abused teenage girls. In 2010, ABC News reported that thirty-six swimming coaches had been banned for life by the USA Swimming organization for molesting and secretly taping dozens of teenage girl swimmers while they were undressing and showering.

There are several commonalities to these and other cases of teens being sexually abused by adults. In the vast majority of cases, abusers are people teens know and trust and who have power and authority over them. In cases of parent — child incest, abusers are already in a position of authority. Abusers misuse their power, authority, and trust to sexually exploit teens.

How to Spot a Potential Abuser

Abusers typically lead double lives, one of public respectability and another of private exploitation. There is no typical sex offender profile — offenders come from all racial, religious, economic, age, and ethnic groups. The saying, "You cannot judge a book by its cover" is especially true when it comes to molesters. Abusers can be anyone. It's impossible to identify sexual abusers based on their outward appearance, public behavior, or relationship to your child. They do, however, give clues through their behaviors — actions that reflect a sexual interest in youth. Most abusers carefully select their victims and then go through a process of emotionally and physically "grooming" them.

Grooming

Grooming refers to the techniques or strategies deliberately undertaken to manipulate a child into engaging in sexual behaviors. Through the grooming process, an offender forms a "special" relationship with the child and gains the victim's trust, then slowly and insidiously breaks down personal and physical boundaries to desensitize the child to sexual behaviors, all the while making sure that the victim keeps the sexual activity a secret.

Grooming teens, parents, and organizations. Sex offenders not only groom children but also their families and sometimes the whole community. They are skilled at ingratiating themselves with teens and infiltrating into unsuspecting families and organizations. Grooming of the family or community has a dual purpose: first, to secure the trust and thus cooperation of the parents in gaining access to the child; and second, to reduce the likelihood of discovery by appearing to be "above reproach." Their reputation often enables them to avoid detection. "I was a very successful tutor," one offender said, "and I used that to my advantage. If they didn't come to me they wouldn't pass their exams, so it was a sort of blackmail. I got quite close to the parents, and the [victims] would see that their parents and I were on good terms and I used that as a lever as well."

A prominent coach who ran an elite girls' basketball program told parents that with his help, their daughters would win college scholarships. He used their dreams of college scholarships to bribe the girls into having sex. He also groomed the parents as effectively as he groomed the teens. One girl remembered sneaking out to a party only to have the coach inform her parents about it. She got punished while he earned their trust. Many parents were proud that their daughters were chosen by this influential coach.

Gaining the teen's sexual compliance. Abusers employ a variety of strategies to get teens to comply with their sexual requests. First, they cultivate a "special" friendship, charming kids with compliments, gifts, and attention to gain the teen's trust and confidence. One 29-year-old female math teacher and coach sexually abused Donna, a 12-year-old straight-A student. The coach spent months gaining Donna's trust, talking to her about her sense of "not belonging" in her family, her feeling unloved by her parents and misunderstood by friends. According to Donna, "She made me feel special, as though I was worth spending time with. She was very interested in what I had to say and really seemed to listen. She'd buy me things: shoes, stuffed animals, and meals. She set up a bank account for my university education and paid for a creative writing course my parents couldn't afford. She said all of these were just her way of helping out, and showing how much she loved me and how much I meant to her."

Sometimes grooming involves flattery. One young athlete said this about his abusing coach, "I was totally flattered that this smart worldly man was taking an interest in me. He spent a lot of time flattering me about my looks and my hockey skills. He was always there by my side, watching me, criticizing me, flattering me, trying to make me love him."

Engaging a child in sexual activities requires privacy, so the offender arranges to be alone with a teen. An offender might ask the teen to go to the movies, offer after-school help, take the teen shopping or out to eat, or offer rides to or from activities. A football coach offered to baby-sit one couple's 13-year-old football-player son so the parents could go out to celebrate their wedding anniversary. While the parents were out, he molested their son.

The time, attention, flattery, and gifts are all ways to emotionally seduce the teen. By bestowing lots of "love" on the child, the child comes to the point where he or she will do anything for the abuser. By spending time alone and developing an exclusive relationship, the teen is effectively cut off from peers and family members — people who could be a source of safety and who could potentially stop the exploitation before the abuser takes it to the next step, that of violating personal boundaries.

Violating boundaries. Through a process of gradual desensitization, the relationship becomes sexualized. The offender begins to blur the boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate touches and talk.

Children are rarely aware they are being groomed. One victim reported, "I didn't know there was anything wrong with [his touching] because I didn't know it was abuse until later. I thought he was showing me affection." Another teen recalled, "It took me forever to figure out what was going on. He called it 'roughhousing' and wanted to do it every time he was alone with me. In summer camp, that happened to be a lot of times. When I got older, I realized he was having erections when he rolled all over me."

Like touches, conversations can cross over into personal and inappropriate territory. The abuser might begin sharing personal matters and introducing sexual topics into conversations. Months before 11-year- old Heather was molested by her 35-year-old computer science teacher, she told her parents that he had started asking her personal questions, like "Are you ever alone at home?" and "Would you like to come camping with me sometime?" Other abusers describe their own sexual experiences or "teach" the teen about sex.

Sometimes offenders show their victims pornographic pictures or Web sites, or take sexual photos or videos of themselves or the child as a way to reduce the teen's resistance. Alcohol, drugs, or marijuana are often used to lower the teen's inhibitions. Others send racy e-mails and text messages. In 2010 an assistant high school principal was arrested for sending a topless photo of herself to a 14-year-old boy. It's not that hard to gain young adolescents' sexual compliance, given their natural curiosity about sex, struggles about sexual identity, insecurity about attractiveness, quest for independence, and desire for romantic connections.

Keeping the Secret: Why Don't Teens Tell?

The grooming process is extremely effective in keeping teens silent. A complex range of emotions — feelings of complicity, embarrassment, betrayal, guilt, shame — all conspire to silence teens and keep them from disclosing the abuse.

Fear. Because of the power abusers hold over teens, it's very difficult to refuse their sexual advances. "He was the coach; I was afraid to say no," one victim of a basketball coach reported. When the girl tried to refuse the coach's advances, he replied, "OK, I don't want to play basketball with you anymore. You won't get into college — I'll make sure of it." Teen victims of coaches are also aware that if they break rank, they could threaten the whole team's success. With their cognitive capacity to imagine the effects of disclosing on their family, team, or community, young teens are vulnerable to being trapped in the offender's web of secrecy. One teen girl believed that if she told about her step-father molesting her, she would be responsible for breaking up her family and that her younger sister would then have to grow up without a father. An adolescent male victim of cler gy sexual abuse reported, "I knew it was wrong, but Father Joe said that the whole church could fall apart if people knew."

Concern for the abuser. Sometimes teens don't tell because they like (or "love") the person and don't want the relationship to end or to get the abuser (or themselves) in trouble. An incest survivor explained why she never told about her father abusing her: "My father was all I had. As destructive and as soul murdering as his attention was at night, it was the only attention I received. To believe that my father never loved me during the day, that he only used me for his own pleasures at night, would be to feel a sense of abandonment so deep, so agonizing, it would have destroyed me completely."

Guilt. Teens also keep the secret because they may have disobeyed their parents by being with the offender. And some victims blame themselves, especially if they enjoyed the sexual experience, thinking their natural sexual arousal means they are guilty too.

Shame. Boys seem to have an especially difficult time disclosing. When their abusers are men, boys are reluctant to tell out of embarrassment or fears of being labeled as homosexual. One boy reported that his abusing coach constantly used the threat of revealing him as homosexual to ensure his silence. "I was afraid that if I told, I would have been shut up and sent home, the other players would call me gay and shun me, my hockey career finished." Experts on clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse note that it's particularly difficult for altar boys to tell, when their religion views homosexuality as a sin. Boys sexually exploited by women may not view their experiences as abuse.

How can you use this information to protect your teen from being sexually exploited? Here are some behavioral warning signs that an adult may be grooming your teen.

Warning Signs of Potential Abusers of Teens

Be on the lookout for an adult who:

• gives your teen gifts,

• seems inappropriately physical with children and teens (caressing, wrestling, tickling),

• talks about personal matters with your teen via mobile phone or text messaging,

• offers to spend time alone with your teen outside of work-related responsibilities,

• sends sexually explicit text messages or photos to your teen, or is requesting that your teen do the same,

• singles out your child for a relationship or special attention,

• socializes with kids/teens outside of sanctioned activities,

• purchases drugs, alcohol, or marijuana for youth,

• allows teens to do questionable or inappropriate activities,

• asks teens to keep secrets from parents,

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Safe Connections by Sandy K. Wurtele. Copyright © 2012 Parenting Press, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Parenting Press, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Introduction 4

1 What Makes Teens Vulnerable to Sexual Exploitation? 6

2 A Parent's Nightmare: When Your Teen Is Sexually Abused 9

3 Help Your Teen Make Safe Online Connections 18

4 When Teens Offend 24

5 Raising Sexually Respectful Teens in a Sexually Disrespectful World 29

Index 32