In a time where you hear, see or read about more adults are being arrested for committing a variety of sex crimes against children, there should be certain safeguards that should not be ignored.
This article will attempt to address children participating in sporting events, extracurricular activities, children with access to the Internet as well as children in school classrooms. I will also touch on what adults can do to protect themselves against the possibility of being falsely accused of unlawful activities pertaining to children.
Protecting Children
Men (and women) who have chosen to victimize children for their sexual pleasure should never be anywhere around children. In many cases, those who have been caught, arrested and convicted, have their activities have been curtailed, but they still find ways to re-offend. It is my personal belief that confinement in prison does not rehabilitate the sex offender, it merely houses them until they eventually get paroled out of prison.
And once they have been released, many of them have and will gravitate towards places and activities where their preferred victims will frequent. These crimes have occurred where the children are from toddlers up through their teenage years. These crimes have occurred in public and private Elementary, Middle and High school environments as well as a variety of extracurricular activities. Some of these offenders are extremely patient and will take their time to groom their intended victims with some offenders waiting months or even years before they find the opportunity to strike.
Many convicted sex offenders and those yet to be discovered have found their way into positions (voluntary as well as paid occupations) of trust where parents and the children they seek to victimize might never give a second thought or doubt about their safety in those environments.
Their chosen occupations would astound you as they range from long time Martial Arts instructors, law enforcement officials from the ranks of entry level patrol officers to Command Officers, several in the legal field as well as many individuals within the teaching profession.
And once the case against the sex offenders have been adjudicated, the conditions of the parole (or probation) of the convicted sex offenders prohibit them from being in those positions of trust around children, yet they still look for the opportunity to victimize yet another child.
Here are suggestions for parents and others to attempt to prevent their child, or a child under any adult’s care from being victimized by a male or female predator.
Social Media and the Internet
There are many cases where children have been lured by predators over the internet. Some of these cases involve children who are either on social media platforms or children that are duped by adult predators pretending to be a child. There are also cases where children play video games where they are connected to others online while playing video games. There always exists the possibility of adults gaining access to a child while pretending to be a child and somehow gaining access to a child’s social circle of friends.
There are different ways to solve this problem. The first is to not allow children to have access to social media platforms where they can operate on those platforms. No matter how innocent the child may say it is. The second solution is to only allow them access once the parent can verify the people in their social network and supervise them the entire time, they are online. And yet another way is to take away or restrict their access to the internet and social platforms to when you are with them and can verify their social network. Take into account that your child may be more technologically savvy than you are, and they know how to hide who they are communicating with. It may not matter how many times you express the danger of being online with a person that could be a potential predator, your child may truly believe they are really communicating with a friend.
If your child is insistent, they may still find a way around your supervision. Knowing and actively supervising your child with frequent verifications of their activities are essential to keeping them safe. You are not your child’s friend, you are their parent who needs to keep them safe, no matter how much they may object!
Sports and extracurricular activities
Children participate in a variety of sports and extracurricular activities. Predators will seek them out and prey upon them when given even the slightest opportunity. Several times a year we hear of yet another predator who has been arrested for their unlawful sexual conduct with a child. In order to protect your child, here are some suggestions:
- Parents should never just drop off their child and leave the child at the practice location. Doing so, allows “anyone” to have access to your child without your knowledge or observation.
- Instead, parents should remain at the practice location and be diligent to watch their child’s activities and others around them.
- Parents should also never totally zone out from the activity their child is participating in. They should watch to see how their child is progressing. This gives the parent the role of being active in their child’s activity, and not passive. The parent might perhaps even provide some helpful suggestions to their child after the session has been concluded to help the child progress in that activity.
- Parents should also watch out for conduct they might deem as inappropriate. That conduct could be verbal or physical.
- If the adults who are there to help your child have private conversations that only the child can hear, immediately following the session, ask your child without raising suspicion what that conversation was about. This will allow you to know if that private conversation was appropriate or not.
- Parents also need to pay attention to the children whose parents are not present to watch their child. That child may be the one at risk because they seem to be the ones left alone with no parent taking active participation in that child’s activity. And if someone seems to do things that appear inappropriate, the observant parent needs to report that suspicious and inappropriate behavior to the adult in charge of the activity.
Not every person is going to hurt a child. This article is to suggest that if you pay attention to what’s occurring in your community, you will learn not just about offenders that have been arrested, convicted, but every now and then, you will hear about people who were in positions of trust that were recently arrested and danger signs to watch for, all to prevent your child from being victimized.
Protection for Adults
From time to time, adults find themselves in vulnerable positions where they could be at risk of being falsely accused of inappropriate contact or behavior with a child. I found myself in a couple of those same situations when I taught in both Elementary and Middle School classrooms. In the first instance, I was teaching music at the beginning of the school year. This is the time of year that Kindergarten and First grade students may be away from home and without their parents for the first time in their lives.
Some of these young students may not have been taught to use the bathroom by themselves and particularly, they have not yet learned how to unfasten certain clothing items their parents have chosen to dress the child for school. The parents probably have not considered their children (in my example a little boy) would have difficulty in unfastening clothing items when they need to use the bathroom. As their teacher, the child asked me and was granted permission to use the restroom which was attached to the classroom.
Within a minute of the child going towards the bathroom, the child returned and approached me to tell me that he did not know how to unfasten his pants. I had two choices: 1: refuse to touch the child’s pants button and attempt to empower the child to manipulate the pants himself. In choosing that option, there was a strong possibility that the child would not be successful and probably soil himself, which creates a whole host of problems for the child and the children in the classroom.
Or, 2: I can assist the child in unfastening his pants button and allow the child to go into the bathroom, complete their task and fasten his pants again once he returns.
But understand, in unfastening the child’s pants button, doing so placed me in a precarious position for the potential of someone, possibly with an agenda making something out of nothing. So, what did I do. I made sure to unfasten just the button of the child’s pants, but doing in front of his classmates.
This allowed me to stay in full view of all the other children the entire time and allow them to see that I only touched his pants button to allow the child to go to and from the bathroom by himself.
In the second example, in teaching Martial Arts to Middle school students, I would occasionally find that I needed to assist students by placing their body in a position that would facilitate the movement. For example, teaching them to execute a round house kick. I would tell them to stand sideways and place their left hand onto the wall, then lift their right leg, similar to a male dog going to the bathroom on a fire hydrant. Then to extend their right leg outward to the intended target. I would then demonstrate the movement they needed to perform. Although the majority of students totally understood the explanation and could accomplish the movement, there was always one or two students who could not grasp this concept. I would ask the student if I could touch their kicking leg to assist them. Once they gave permission, I would explain and model to the students that I am touching just the students’ right knee and right foot to place the student’s body and leg in the correct position to execute the kick.
Whenever I did this “touching” I ensured that this was done in full view of the students, once again to reduce or defend myself from those who might have an agenda and attempt to besmirch my reputation by making false claims.
And as students exited my classroom, occasionally there might be a student who lingered in the classroom longer than the other students. Rather to be inside the classroom alone with just one student, I was diligent to stop the second to the last student and ask them to stay inside the classroom until they both left the classroom as the same time.
Looking back at those experiences, I would recommend two solutions to prevent potential allegations of misconduct:
- Ensure there are always two adults in every classroom. This allows one adult as the teacher and another adult as parent volunteer and a witness to quell any discrepancies that anyone could possibly bring later.
- Install two cameras for each and every classroom and ensure that all angles are covered. The cameras need to be capable of storage for at least 30 days.
There are occasions where those with agendas have made false accusations against an adult, accusing inappropriate touching or verbal behavior with a child. And for those adults who were adversely affected or arrested, it has made immediate front-page news and once the truth is revealed about the false accusation, it makes a back page correction sometimes months or years later. But because it has had such a profound effect on the community, the person is almost immediately condemned and their reputation forever tarnished. Whether or not the person falsely accused has the mental fortitude and time to recover from the personal and professional slur is a whole different set of issues. People may even need a total change in where they live and their name changed in an effort to escape their tarnished name and face recognition.
Nevertheless, the person falsely accused still must undergo the assumption and scrutiny he or she will receive until “all the facts” are known, and that may not be for some time.
One might ask why a person or persons would falsely accuse another of such a horrible act against a child. The answers range from anger, revenge, jealousy, or just being evil. I have even seen where a student wanted her way and when that was not granted, she launched negative and baseless claims against the adult, causing the adult to lose their job and position as a coach.
For those and many more reasons, I would suggest that adults need to be extremely careful in their dealings with others, especially children. I would make the following suggestions to prevent any such allegation from ever occurring:
- Never be in private spaces alone with a child you are not personally related to.
- Always have another person (and if possible, an adult) present with you for that interaction.
- Whenever possible, do things in public where everyone can see, not in private where no one can see.
- Place cameras in school classrooms that cover all angles of the classroom with no blind spots.
- Frequent review of classroom videos by school Administration to verify that no inappropriate conduct is occurring or has occurred.
- And if inappropriate conduct is occurring, take immediate action to remove the offender from the classroom, and potentially from the teaching occupation and contact law enforcement.
- But unless there is obvious and overwhelming evidence of such inappropriate conduct, a discreet and professional investigation is warranted. The fact that an investigation has begun should be kept confidential with only those who need to know. The premature release of information (especially if the allegations have not been proven) can be extremely damaging to the accused and their rights should be protected.
- If the adult teacher has a conversation with a child, ensure that conversation is repeated to the adult caring for that child and ask the child to confirm the facts of that conversation in front of the parent/guardian.
- In physical sports (such as Martial Arts) certain touching may need to occur in order to place the student’s body in a specific position to allow them to perform the movement. Always ask the child for their permission first before you move the specific body part and make sure all touching is explained in advance and done so where everyone in the class can see what is occurring.
- Only when the allegation has been investigated and can it be administratively and legally sustained and an arrest is warranted, allow the appropriate and legitimate authority to release sensitive information with the news media sources.
After all is said and done, should you ever suspect your child has or is being physically or sexually abused, immediately cease participating in the activity that you believe is harmful to your child. Secondly, file a police report with a law enforcement agency. Thirdly, report that activity to the people in charge of the activity your child is or has been participating in with the intent for the potential offender not to be allowed in such an environment with other children. Fourthly, seek physical and psychological assistance for your child as well as yourself for as long as required. Many times, the District Attorney’s office and Police Victim’s Advocates have funds set aside to assist victims of crimes.
