How to make your kids safe....

Here in Australia there has been a huge story on the news about a known Paedophile Dennis Ferguson being released from jail and located in a housing complex right next door to families with kids. The families are very upset, more probably because of the intense media coverage and the pressure to "do something" to protect their children. Police have had to guard this mans abode due to protests and incidents of fighting outside of his house. He is refusing to be moved and it has also raised the question of where to? Where do you put someone who is considered the lowest of criminals? There must be hundreds of them out there. They do get released, and it is into public housing that most of them go.  They have served their time and now the tax payer gets to fund their housing and provides them with funds.

I lived in government housing when I was younger and I had a small child and was very aware that around me where drug dealers, families suffering through mental and physical abuse and people just released from jail for goodness knows what. It can be very scary when you are surrounded by this kind of energy and misery (who in their right mind would do that stuff if they were happy?).

Later in life I worked as a counsellor. I was fortunate enough to work with an amazing supervisor who had 20+ years in counselling including rape and sexual abuse counselling. She did her thesis on recovered memories and was pursued by paedophilia rings to try and not have her work released and published. What she told me scared me to death. They are out there, they are teachers, priests, corner shop owners, scout leaders, neighbour, uncles, grandparents, and fathers. They could be anyone and they work together to keep their acts below the radar as much as possible. And we can't rely upon the government to weed them out, the problem is so extensive. There is no test we can give people. It's not just about the sex either, so castrating them doesn't make it stop. It's about power and domination.

So how do you make your kids safe? I was horrified to hear our very own minister for Housing and the Status of Women Tanya Plibersek on the ABC Q and A show this "To have to explain to them why it is that they shouldn't be talking to this particular next door neighbour when they're six or eight or nine years old, I think they're very difficult things to ask parents to do".   That's exactly what we should do as parents! 

We actually don't protect our children by not providing them with information that they need to protect themselves. We make them easy targets. You need to talk to your children about this very issue.  It's just as important as everything else you teach them.  You can do it in a gentle and sensitive way and one that gets the message across.  Give them options on what actions they can take.  Some of the points to discuss should include:

• Touching - what is safe touching, who is allowed to touch their bodies and who is not and what to do if someone does touch you.
• Who is allowed to touch them - Doctors, mum, dad (but only in their safe places and with their permission - make them their own boss of their own bodies).  You also need to talk to them about the fact it could be from someone they know and may even be family.
• Grooming language - Talk to them about how these people sometimes try and make them into special friends and have secrets.
• Secrets - Talk to them about what is a good secret and what is not. Also need to talk about potential threats they may be told, like "if you tell daddy, he won't love you anymore and will give you away". Tell them that this will never happen and not to believe the person.
• Action - Tell them what to do if they feel uncomfortable - scream, run away, come to a safe place (home, or person they feel safe with). Arm your kids with knowledge and action plan if it happens. 

• Love - tell them that you will love them no matter what and that this is a very important thing to remember.  It's the one thing they need to know so that they can safely tell you if something has happened already.

The statistics are frightening, one in four girls and one in six boys. However, these are based on reported cases. There are so many unreported cases so the statistics are higher.  So don't feel helpless, feel empowered, do something that does work.  I spoke to my daughter when she was 7 (as soon as I learnt what to do by my supervising counsellor).  Kids have a different mindset, they don't worry about the big things like we do.  I just let her know that this was an important issue to me that I need her to know what to do and I had her repeat things back to me.  I ran scenarios by her and she told me what she would do.  It wasn't hard at all.  I have revisited it again when she was 10 and she still remembered it all and gave it back to me (in that bored "yes mum" voice).   I saw this as a good sign.

Actually, having Dennis Ferguson next door wouldn't be such a bad thing to me, at least I would know where he is and that my daughter and son were safe because they know what he's capable of and they would steer clear of him and tell their friends too.  Its the ones you don't know about that are the issue...