The parents of students at Miramonte Elementary are angry and frustrated because the school failed to protect their children from two teachers who allegedly engaged in sexual incidents with children while they were at school.  The parents are asking questions about what the school knew and why they weren’t notified when school officials began to suspect inappropriate behavior.

Since there is an ongoing investigation, we probably won’t learn the exact sequence of how decisions were made or why they were made for a long time. During an investigation, the police and school officials cannot share some of the information they have about the incidents.

Parents are angry at the school for failing to protect their children.  The parents expected a trusted institution to protect their children.  Regretfully, I think we have reached a point as a society that we can no longer naively trust that institutions will protect our children.

The Miramonte parents need to assume responsibility for teaching their children sexual safety.  All parents need to assume the responsibility of educating children about sexual safety.  Parents, not churches or schools, have the primary responsibility to protect their children.

If we are going to keep children safe, we have to educate parents about how to teach their children about sexual safety and how to provide intrusive supervision.

I believe Joe Paterno because I’ve talked with many parents and other individuals much younger than Joe Paterno who wouldn’t know what to do in the same situation. I wish we would all learn two lessons from Joe Paterno’s situation. Those two lessons are that we need to know what sexual abuse is and how to report it to the appropriate authorities.

The first lesson is that we need to recognize what behavior can be considered sexual abuse of child. The following behaviors are considered sexual abuse in most states:

* Touching genitals or breasts
* Having a child touch an adult’s genitals or breasts
* Putting objects or body parts inside the vagina, mouth, or anus of a child for sexual pleasure
* Showing pornography to a child
* Exposing genitals to a child
* Photographing a child in sexual poses
* Encouraging a child to watch or listen to sexual acts in person or on video
* Watching a child undress

The second lesson we need to learn is how and when to report suspected abuse. In most states, adults are required to reported suspected abuse. You don’t have to have proof that abuse is occurring, you just have to suspect it is occurring. If you suspect abuse is occurring, you need to call your state’s child protection agency or law enforcement. If you are considered about the immediate safety of a child, you should call law enforcement.

Regardless of how people want to judge Joe Paterno’s legacy, let’s learn the most important lesson his situation can teach us–how to keep children safe.

If Joe Paterno was the man that his supporters believe he was, I think he would want us to learn how to keep children safe.

Intrusive supervision is based on the concept of “trust, but verify.” The “trust, but verify” aspects of the supervision are directed not only at your children, but also the adults and peers in their lives. Keep in mind that ninety percent of sexual assaults are committed by someone the victim knows and that thirty percent of assaults against children and teens are committed by juveniles.

Intrusive supervision requires that you be aware of where your children are and who they interact with during the day. In addition, to knowing where your children are, you need to randomly check on them during regularly scheduled activities. Get up during your Bible class and go walk by your child’s Bible class. Stay and listen to your child during piano lessons.

Show up at unexpected times to see your child at school, at Little League, or at Girl Scouts. Even when your child is spending time at a friend’s house, arrive unexpectedly to check on your child. Don’t allow your child to spend time alone with another adult on a regular basis. When your child is with a babysitter or in daycare, show up unexpectedly.

Be visible in your intrusive supervision. Being visible in your intrusive supervision will send a clear message to a perpetrator that you are aware of where your children’s activities. Be the parent that everyone knows will show up to check on a child. Don’t let other parents make you feel guilty for providing intrusive supervision. Intrusive supervision should be required of parents in this day and time.

Your child will accept and appreciate this level of supervision if you explain it is not about your child, but about safety in general. If you begin intrusive supervision when your children are young, they will expect it.

Your children deserve the safety that instrusive supervision provides.

The assault occurred on a special needs bus. Allegedly, two 10-year-old Houston boys sexually assaulted an 8-year-old boy on a school bus. All of the boys involved had special needs. The 10-year-old boys were arrested after authorities reviewed a security videotape from the bus and could face up to forty years in prison.

I’m not writing about this to scare you, but to help you understand the risk of sexual abuse that children face. According to the U.S. Department of Justice-Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, children or adolescents commit more than one-third of the sexual offenses against their peers.

Too often we think about sexual abuse being committed by adults against children and don’t recognize the threat peers can pose to children. I don’t want us to demonize children who sexually abuse other children because many of these children have been victims of abuse themselves. They need therapeutic intervention to learn appropriate boundaries.

The way we keep children safe is by providing instrusive supervision and age-appropriate information to our children. More on instrusive supervision in upcoming blogs. . . .

The governor is introducing the bill in response to an incident at a nursing home in Pomeroy, Iowa last August. A judge ordered an 83-year-old man be placed in the facility when he was released from the Civil Commitment Unit for Sexual Predators. The man, who had dementia, sexually assaulted a 95-year-old woman in the facility.

In addition to notification, the new bill will require that a written safety plan be in place to protect the residents, staff, visitors, and community from the sex offender. The Iowa Department of Human Services estimates 55 registered sex offenders currently live in Iowa nursing facilities.

Before reading this article, I knew that staff in nursing facilities would occasionally prey on residents, but I had not really considered that aging sex offenders could also be residents of the facilities. Regretfully, in our society we are going to have to learn how to deal with aging sex offenders.

As caregivers to older parents, we will have the responsibility to ask if there are sex offenders in the facility. Even if there aren’t identified sex offenders, we need to know what the safety plans are to keep our parents from being assaulted in a facility.

A sad, but realistic commentary on where we are as a culture.

Once a youth has been identified as likely to either join a gang or leave a gang, then professionals will intervene to provide them the support they need to avoid gang life or help them leave it.

While the assessment is just to the point of being field tested, it holds great promise for changing the lives of youth all over the country. You can read more here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124276162416235869.html.

While it is easy for politicians to complain about the research conducted in universities, they need to take a closer look at the types of research being conducted. Throwing the baby out with the bath water is never a good idea.

According to NBC news, “The new definition will include any gender of the victim and attacker and also assaults in which a victim cannot give consent because the individual has been incapacitated by drugs or alcohol, is under the age of consent, or is mentally or physically incapable of consent and physical resistance from the victim is not required to demonstrate lack of consent in the new definition.”

The new definition acknowledges that other assaultive behaviors are involved in sexual abuse and provides a more accurate way to track sexual crimes. With more accurate statistics, researchers and practitioners will be able to more effectively provide preventative and rehabilitative services.

Although a change in definition may seem inconsequential, in this case, it will determine where money is spent to provide research, treatment, and prevention of sexual crimes. In a time when money is tight, it is important that federal, state, and private monies be spent wisely.

Regardless of what the laws are about where sex offenders can live, there will be a concentration of sex offenders in certain areas of most cities because landlords and apartment managers in more affluent areas of town conduct criminal background checks as part of leasing their property.  With or without the laws, sex offenders will face many more barriers to finding housing in more affluent areas.

Laws that restrict where sex offenders can live also create a false sense of safety for parents.  Sex offenders can live with relatives and not register where they are living with authorities.  The best course of prevention and protection for children is teaching parents how to protect their children.  Most sexual offenders are not strangers, rather they are friends and acquaintances of the children’s family.

Parents need to be able to teach their children sexual safety skills so children will know when and how to tell if they experience inappropriate sexual advances from peers or adults.  Something as simple as reading a coloring book like God Made Me: The Safe Touch Coloring Book can help parents initiate sexual safety discussions.  In addition to teaching children about sexual safety, parents need to provide intrusive supervision and check who their children are interacting with at structured and unstructured activities.

Blessedly, times have changed opinions on both sides of the dichotomy that was created between counseling and religion.  Now, Christian counseling is a recognized profession. However, the research about the effectiveness of religious and spiritual therapies is just beginning.

In January 2010, the Journal of Clinical Psychology published an article based on a meta-analysis conducted by Hook, Worthington, Jr., Davis, Jennings II, and Gartner.  The article reported that statistically the meta-analysis of existing research found only limited evidence that religious therapy was more effective than secular therapy.  The researchers suggested that the effectiveness of religious therapies may be related to client preferences and counselor comfort with religious therapies.

The article strongly recommended that additional research needs to be conducted on the effectiveness of religious therapies.  I strongly concur.  While I readily accept the wisdom of Biblical teachings, demonstrating the effectiveness in utilizing Biblical concepts in counseling through scientific research becomes one more avenue for reaching professionals who would question how Christians can be counselors.

• Adolescents may be experiencing depression, according to the DSM-IV-TR, if they exhibit the following symptoms nearly every day
• A depressed mood most of the day
• Markedly diminished interest or pleaser in all or almost all activities during most of the day
• Significant weight gain or weight loss (when not dieting) or decrease or increase in appetite
• Sleeping more or less than usual nearly every day
• Physical agitation
• Fatigue or loss of energy
• Feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt
• Inability to concentrate or make decisions
• Recurrent thought of death or suicide

According to Dr. Graham Emslie, a specialist in adolescent depression, only about 40 percent of adolescents needing treatment for depression get treatment. In addition, once adolescent girls hit puberty, their risk of depression is double that of their male peers.

If you are a parent or someone who works with adolescents, be aware of changes in the mood and behavior of teens.  If teens experience changes in behaviors or mood, please pay close attention and seek out the help of a professional counselor if the changes persist.

Adapted from Young and Depressed by Jim Paterson in Counseling Today, July 2011.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, Text Revision.