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Help for Parents of Children who have been Sexually Abused
- Connect with a counselor who specializes in recovery from sexual assault. A local rape crisis center, such as the Sexual Assault Program, will help you with this.
- Take care of yourself. Children are often very aware of the pain of thier parents. If you are falling apart, your child will feel they need to be strong and may change their mind about reporting the abuse and/or delay their healing.
- If your son was assaulted - help him realize that men and boys do get raped - there is nothing about him that brought this on.
- It is rare for a victim of sexual assault to not be overwhelmed by self-blame and shame. "If only I had not..." - Your child will need you to reassure them over and that no matter what they were doing, they did not deserve to be raped.
- Your child will probably experience mood swings over the next few weeks. They may lose their appetite and have trouble sleeping. They will be very sensitive.
- You will have a natural desire to protect your child at every moment. Try to avoid being over protective - this will only reinforce their fears that the world is an unsafe place that will cause them to doubt their ability to make good decisions for themselves.
- Often times children cover up a part of the sexual assault because they were doing or going somehwere with or without their friends and that they knew they should not be doing or going.
- Since sexual assault is an "Out of Control Experience", you can help your child regain their sense of control, by giving them power to make important and not so important choices for themselves.
- After an assault, most victims report they thought everyone was looking at them funny or saying things about them.
- Depression in adolescents looks different from depression in adults, it often involves substance use, high risk behaviors, acting out, stealing, etc.
- Sypmtoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) commonly experienced after an assault include numbness, being very anxious, and being consumed with what happened.
- Your child may need a few days off of school to regain their physical and emotional strength.
back to information about Sexual Violence
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