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Preparing A Safe, Secure Home for Sexually Abused Kids

By Mary Carter Creech

Editor: In April 1999, we published the excellent article, "The Language of Sexual Abuse." As a follow up, our own Mary-Carter Creech (who is the manager of the Adoptive Parents Mentor Program at NWAE, a graduate student at Antioch University, and a long-time adoptive parent of a later-placed child) interviewed two other NWAE staff (the experts in our midst) to support her analysis and review of how parents who foster and adopt children who have been sexually abused are prepared and supported in this difficult task. She also drew upon the McNamaras' book Adoption and the Sexually Abused Child (1990) and Adopting the Hurt Child: Hope for Families with Special Needs Kids by Keck and Kupeky (1995).

It is estimated that 85- 95% of children in foster care will have experienced some level of sexual abuse before coming into foster care and/or while in foster care.

The once-held belief by adoption workers and foster and adoptive families that within a safe and loving new home children would be able to overcome the past problems and the emotional and behavioral residue of sexual abuse has been dispelled forcefully by children - children who still feel terror, confusion, and rage despite the efforts of a new family to make them feel secure. As they move in foster care from family to family, children have a residue of pain and confusion too great to carry and resolve on their own.

Donna Davis, one of the authors of the Foster and Adoptive Parents Preparation Curriculum and a trainer, readily admits that the training alone is not sufficient to instruct parents on the complexities of parenting sexually abused kids. She encourages families to assume that a child will have experienced some level of sexual abuse, prepare for how they'll cope with the behaviors, and establish their rules for privacy before the child comes into the home.

She emphasizes that families must examine their own levels of tolerance for a child who sexually acts out. At the conclusion of the training, Davis says, "First, you know that this is a job worth doing, and second, you don't know much." She encourages families to read everything they can find, and to realize the training is just a start.

The families' sense of optimism for a future child oftentimes makes them resistant to the realities addressed in training, to what is told to them by their social workers, and to even their own uncertainties. Any child, they believe, will thrive in their family with the love, commitment and guidance they will be provided.

Norma Nelson, a former state adoption placement worker and now the project manager for the Alaska Adoption Exchange at NWAE, finds the following parental characteristics valuable in helping sexually traumatized children:

A certain comfort level about sex, e.g., masturbation, reproduction, and birth control can be talked about among family members.

Every family member has worked through any of their own past sexual abuse issues.

Comfortable with an intrusive parenting style - "This is the way we do things in this house!"

A family that is between being what she describes as closed and too loose. The closed family won't want anyone to help because they believe they know how to handle all problems. The too loose family is often highly influenced by extended family and friends and has little structure. An appropriate family tends to have a healthy flexibility but knows its boundaries and will seek out help. A good sense of humor is usually an important and very useful trait in such a family.

How do they plan to prepare birth children and talk about the transition of the new child into their home.

For many families, therapeutic intervention becomes the primary source of post-placement training. The child may have begun therapy before being placed in the home. Because therapy can be pivotal in recovery, it is important that the parents be aware of how to choose therapy for their child and/or determine if the current therapy is working. For many parents, this may be their first experience with therapy and they may have to overcome their own resistance to seeking therapy.

Many families express difficulty finding a mental health professional who understands the issues of their adopted children. A therapist who is doing individual therapy but is not sensitive to the importance of transfering attachments may usurp the parental role and aggravate the child's ability to attach to a new family. It is important that parents understand the goals of therapy and the child's needs, and actively participate in helping the child change behaviors.

For therapy to be successful, it must directly relate to the presenting problems the family and child are experiencing and be based on a good understanding of adoption dynamics. The therapeutic interventions that are viewed as most helpful are those that are active and direct and focused on strategies to help children change negative behaviors and to learn to trust sufficiently to be able and willing to form attachments with their adoptive parents.

Tips for "Preparing a Safe, Secure Place for Healing"

Have boundaries and rules that are clear and safe.
Emphasize that feelings can be experienced with out choosing to act on them.
Supervise in ways that allow you to keep track of your kids at all times and know who they are with, as well as to give opportunities to redirect "trigger" behaviors (aggressive horseplay or teasing, and lack of boundaries).
Present opportunities for increasing self-control by helping kids learn to identify "trigger" feelings (fear frustration, anxiety, and stress are possible triggers which may stimulate sexual feelings and trigger behaviors, and unsafe situations); reduce stress through slow breathing, word hugs, prayers, imaging, etc; develop social and communication and problem solving abilities; understand cause and effect; and develop goal-oriented behavior.
Make the "rule of three" a new family rule: avoid just one adult alone with a child, or two kids without an adult. And teach kids the "No/Go/Tell" defense.
Talk respectfully about sexuality, using correct terms for body parts. Suggestive and ambiguous words, slang, and obscenities can be "triggers" that create feelings of stimulation and shame.
Communicate actions and intentions clearly. Touching and cuddling between children and adults may be threatening and/or may trigger sexualized feelings/ behaviors.
Discuss how secrets, surprises and privacy differ. Emphasize that there are to be no secret games, stories, clubs, or presents, especially between them and adults or older kids.
Discuss openly as a family the boundaries and rules for bedrooms, bathroom, bedtimes, and dressing and undressing. All members need to understand that for kids who have been hurt and compromised by sexual abuse these may carry sexual and/or aggressive messages and that all adults (regardless of sex) may be perceived as potentially threatening.
Provide separate beds for children and separate bedrooms for boys and for girls to help set safe boundaries and encourage privacy.
Use logical consequences and behavioral contracts for misbehavior.