Family Situations that Put Children at High Risk for Sexual Abuse- 15 Types

It is difficult to provide round the clock security for a child against sexual abuse, however certain family situations have been found to expose the child to avoidable dangers. Parents would be doing a lot to prevent sexual abuse of their children if they avoid the following family situations:

1. A home situation where children are starved of love and so have to depend on outsiders to meet their emotional needs. Parents that are harsh, hypercritical and not demonstrative of love may leave their children vulnerable to child molesters who pretend to offer them what they cannot get at home.
2. Absence of moral instructions in the home does not equip the child with the resources to know what is bad and evil.
3. Single parent families where a single parent fends for the family and would have to leave the children under the care of others while at work. A child molester can cash in on this situation.
4. A family bedeviled by conflicts will not have coordinated plans to prevent child molestation. A child might have a feeling of being alienated or abandoned as a result of incessant family strife. Tension at most times in the home will not allow the child to disclose any acts that are potentially harmful.
5. A single mother with children could be befriended by a child molester whose aim in the relationship is to have access to her children. Such a mother should not lower her guards until she is sure of the motives of her new friend.
6. A family with a huge traffic of visitors can be vulnerable because there are no external marks on a child molester that will enable you recognize him or her. It is good not to throw your doors wide open to persons you know very little about.
7. A family with children that have not been taught what is “acceptable and decent touching” distinct from “indecent touching’. Children must be taught the difference between decent play and indecent play.
8. A family where children are inhibited in their relationship with their parents and cannot discuss intimate issues freely with their parents.
9. Parents who are preoccupied with watching sexually explicit movies and tolerate pornography in the home put their children at home at risk for sexual molestation. The children from observing these movies come to accept acts displayed in them as normal.
10. Parents who do not talk about sex abuse with their children because they feel uncomfortable with the topic leave them at the mercy of sex offenders.
11. Parents who have not taught their children to have a high index of suspicion of adults who show unusual personal interests in them and lavish gifts on them.
12. Poor parental supervision will not provide opportunities to enable their child tell them what he or she is going through. Parents who are always absent from home without adult presence leaves them at the mercy of child predators.
13. Drug or alcohol abuse by parents will make them emotionally unavailable to listen to their children or to take measures to protect their children.
14. Parental illness has a destabilizing effect on the family and may not make them available for their children.
15. Living in a neighbourhood that has many registered sex offenders puts the child at risk for sexual molestation.