The importance of talking to your children about abuse

This story first appeared in Healthy You - November 2024, The Gazette’s quarterly health publication.

Talking to your child about the difference between good and bad touches needs to start early and happen often to ensure they will be able to recognize abuse and know who to go to if something happens.

According to the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, there were nearly 33,000 reports of child abuse or neglect in the state last year. Of the confirmed cases, four percent were sexual abuse.

Jody Weigel, the prevention specialist at UnityPoint Health/St. Luke’s Hospital Child Protection Center in Hiawatha, does outreach in area school districts. His role is to educate kids using the Safe Touch Program — talking to pre-k up to fifth grade students about good, bad and confusing touches, what are good secrets and bad secrets, and emphasizing that it’s never the child’s fault.

“In our society today, most parents teach their kid to listen to adults, and so if the perpetrator is an adult, and they say, ‘keep it a secret,’ we want to make sure kids know that’s not the type of secret you want to keep,” Weigel said.

He talks to kids about who they can share the information with — school nurses, principals and teachers are all safe adults for kids to reach out to.

“Unfortunately, we know that over 90 percent of the perpetrators of abuse are an acquaintance,” which could be a family member, a parent’s significant other, neighbor or older stepsibling, Weigel said. So letting kids know that it’s OK to tell a trusted adult at school ensures that they have an outlet outside of the home to talk to.

Weigel also encourages teachers, school counselors and family members taking care of the kids to keep repeating this information so they feel comfortable sharing.

“Kids need to hear this information repeatedly, to make sure they can really process the information and know who they can reach out to for help,” he said.

Signs to watch for

Weigel shared some tips on what parents can watch for if they suspect their child is being abused, with the understanding that these behaviors could be caused by other stressors in the child’s life and not always abuse. It is important to be observant and communicative with your child.

It is also important for community members to be observant of the children around them.

“You always hope that home is a safe place for kids, but sometimes that’s where the abuse is taking place,” Weigel said.

If a child is anxious about leaving daycare or hesitant about getting on the school bus to go back home, or hesitates to leave with their parent, that can be a warning sign.

Signs of physical abuse include unexplained injuries; bruising, scratching or handprints; or a broken bone that doesn’t seem developmentally appropriate for a child or doesn’t match the story that the kid is telling.

Next steps

Once you suspect abuse might be occurring, you have multiple options to follow up:

“Call any of those numbers and there’s always going to be a trained professional on the other end to be able to help you navigate the system, make the appropriate referral, tell you where you need to go next, and what are the next steps in the process,” Weigel said.