This article was written by Dr Francis Edo Olotu, Physician, Family Counselor, Author, Conference Speaker and host of the Blog Empowering Dads.Email address:empoweringdads@gmail.com. Visit his blog for a rich diversity of articles on family and health issues
Parents of sexually abused children are usually devastated by the disclosure that their child has been molested by a person close to the family. They go through the agony of trying to fathom why this happened to them. They very often require professional help to enable them recover from the shock of the incident.
Parents of sexually abused children would experience the following:
- Shock that such a violent act can be inflicted on their child by a trusted person. This disclosure will shake the parents to the very foundation of their being.
- Anger at everyone within sight who could not avert the tragedy.
- Refusal to believe that what happened is true. Someone they have known and trusted for years could not have changed overnight and committed this hideous act.
- Self-blame for not having been alert enough to rescue her child.
- Depression, anxiety and sleeplessness arising from prolonged agony over the incident.
- Trading of blames and looking for a scapegoat that was not watchful enough to avert the disaster.
- Disruption of family social life because of uncertainty of how people will judge them and relate with them. This will lead to social isolation and further depression.
- Parent-child relationship will be strained because the parents do not know how to handle the situation.
- Resort to harmful habits like smoking, alcohol abuse and use of drugs could arise from this incident in a bid to let off tension. This is a harmful way of reacting to the situation.
- Loss of self-confidence and self-esteem arising from the fact that this incident is an indication of failure in their parental duties.
- There is a tendency to suspect just about any person as a child molester after this incident.
- Fathers feel the hurt greatly because they are expected to provide leadership at such times and may not be able to express their emotions. Bottled emotions can lead to hypertension, peptic ulcer or depression.
Parents need professional help to tidy them over this period of unmitigated grief and mind searching.
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