High-profile cases of sexual abuse of children at respected places—the Horace Mann School, Joe Paterno’s locker room at Penn State, the offices of revered pediatrician Melvin Levine, the cloisters of the Catholic Church—serve to illustrate that abuse is very hard to anticipate. “We delude ourselves in to thinking that certain situations are without danger,” says…
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For most parents setting boundaries for young kids’ behavior is second nature: No hitting. Don’t interrupt. We don’t grab toys out of other kids’ hands. But as they get older, and social interaction gets more complex, it’s not enough to just learn the rules. They need to learn to set boundaries for themselves and respect…
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We know that children who experience abuse or neglect are “off the charts at risk,” as Dr. Joan Kaufman puts it, for psychiatric disorders like depression, anxiety and substance abuse. What’s more, they’re less likely to respond favorably to the treatments that evidence shows work well for other people. And research has shown that children…
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We teach our young children all sorts of ways to keep themselves safe. We teach them to watch the hot stove, we teach them to look both ways before they cross the street. But, more often than not, body safety is not taught until much older — until sometimes, it is too late. Research conducted…
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There are many signs that a child may be the victim of childhood sexual abuse, and it depends on the age of that child. So in younger children, you’re looking for a failure to thrive. In infants, blood in diapers or unexplained bruises are oftentimes a sign that something may not be right, and as…
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