Taking Sexual Abuse Head On: A Christian Mom's Guide

When my oldest son was five he casually told me that a six-year-old playmate “touched me near my penis and kissed me.” I went numb because I knew this little boy had been sexually abused and now was mimicking what happened to him. I wondered would my son mimic what this boy did to him. I was a mess. I will detail below how we handled the situation, but for now consider this: According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Children's Bureau, at least 695,000 children in the United States had been sexually abused at least once in the last reporting year of 2010. Even though this number is astounding, the reported number of children being abused had dropped from the previous year. The decline in no way suggests that less abuse is happening.

Predators have become more bold and crafty in their approach by using such means as social media sites to prey on children. Others, namely 45-year-old rapper “Too Short,” have gone from singing about abuse to instructing boys on how to sexually abuse girls. As this world becomes more wickedly predatory we have to become wiser in protecting our children.

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Encourage & Rebuke In Love; Biblical Principles for Nurturing & Correcting our Kids

We had practiced hard and long. Joshua, 6, knew what three moves he would do for his gymnastics showcase. The day of the presentation he was confident, said he was ready, and then the excitement
began.

The older boys, more experienced, more advanced, went before his class. They did flips, forward and backward, and even multiple ones. They fascinated Josh and he wanted to be just like them, not in the future but on this day, his presentation day, so he decided to try his hand at their performance. He went to the mat, started in the right position and then the convulsions began. He looked like he was slam dancing with the floor and had really bad body ticks. After a few body slams, he ran off the mat. He was done. I was disappointed and soooooooooo embarrassed, but he was my child and I couldn’t let my embarrassment distance myself from him especially with the extreme comments  from two other parents.

One tried to tell me he did a great job while the other said with pity, “You have a busy boy there, don’t you? You must get really tired.” In that span of three minutes I learned the important balancing act of encouraging my children even when they do something humiliating or horrendous, whether age 6 or 36.

Consider the mother hen who takes her chicks under her wings. Being that close she can shield them
from external forces and comfort them in her bosom. Though being called a mother hen stereotypically gets us a bad rep as a nagging, overbearing mother, I want us to see that a mother hen does what is necessary for her chicks to fly on their own. Like the mother hen, we have to have our children close enough to shield and comfort them. When the time comes for the hard word when they mess up, our children have the memory of the shielding and comforting mom and can realize the encouragement even in the rebuke, if we handle them with care.

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Creating Stability for Our Children: Implementing God’s Order in Your Home

“Mommy, please don’t adopt us,” my nine year old said and then began to explain as he saw my brow raise and eye squint trying to figure out what he really meant. “I hope you don’t ever give us away. Please don’t,” he begged as he hugged me around my neck. He said this some months ago after hearing a presentation at my church that had just begun an adoption and orphan care ministry. That was the first time he heard about children being adopted and knew that it entailed someone giving away children and someone else taking them in. After I explained the general reasons why parents put their children up for adoption and that he and his brothers would be staying with us until somebody died, as long as I could help it, he smiled, settled down and started back playing with his brothers. Everything was once again well in his world.

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