To protect them

To Protect Them
Continued from Sexually Healthy Child Introduction

Raising children in a sexually healthy manner protects them from legitimate abuse. Molesters want kids who are good secret keepers, and what better way to get this than the child who was scolded for touching herself? One who was punished for sexual play? She knows better than to let her parents know, and in fact, may try just as hard as the molester to keep it from them. What better way to keep secrets than a child who cannot even say the word penis or vulva without blushing and shying away? One whose parents continually evade simple questions she may have on such subjects? How likely is such a child to muster the bravado to talk with their parents about a sexual experience? It's a sad indicator of how severe of a disconnect we have when putting up with legitimate abuse is less painful than talking with a parent about sexual issues.

The last thing a molester wants is an outgoing child who can talk freely about her vulva or any other body part just as easily as she would talk about her cheek. The last thing a molester wants is a sexually healthy child. They also take advantage of the fact that children are born uninhibited, and have a natural desire to explore and be fully accepted. This next sentence may be unpopular, but it's accurate to many situations: In many cases, the cold hard truth is that molesters are often successful because they start out giving children something they've desired from others all along and haven’t received. By not repressing sexual instinct or curiosity or acceptance to begin with, parents make it less likely a child will be enticed into something by someone who has ulterior motives.

To Protect Them From Future Adversity

Eventually your child is going to enter puberty. For girls, this is happening as young as six or seven years old these days. Those who aren't early bloomers will generally start to mature by 12-years-old. The bottom line is that sooner or later, your child is going to become a fully sexual being (as opposed to the partially sexual being they are from birth) with all the nuances that come with it. When children are raised in a prudish environment, with this transition comes an awful lot of turbulence. Being raised in a sexually healthy environment from a young age makes adolescence much less stressful, and makes all the potentially negative messages from peers, the media or others much less tormenting. Coming into ones sexuality is much easier when it's been embraced all along. Just like everything else, security comes from loving support from adults.

From dating mishaps to regretable encounters to the possibility of being raped as an adult, sexuality touches life in many aspects, and a sexually healthy upbringing can filter out as much as 95% of the harm from future adversity they are bound to encounter. We all hope that our children will live adversity free lives, but the reality is that stuff happens. When it does, the difference between resiliency and despair is largely due to attitudes and viewpoints. When it comes to sexual issues, a large amount of that resiliency is built through raising a sexually healthy child.

All in all, there are many aspects of the future where sexual neurosis could end up causing your child an awful lot of harm. (For a full idea of what's at stake, refer to our book: 'Sexual Neurosis-the Invisible Child Abuse Epidemic’) By raising a sexually healthy child, you limit that harm and protect them from sexual neurosis. It's something that, over the long haul, will give them a lot of future protection.

Return to Sexually Healthy Child Intro Page