In June 1991 my book entitled" Adopting or Fostering a Sexually Abused Child" was published by Batsford Press. The book is a down to earth account of the day to day experiences of foster and adoptive families in Britain who have one feature in common: they have all had direct experience of caring for a sexually abused child. Within a few weeks of the book being in print a social worker telephoned me. She explained that she had loaned the book to prospective adoptive parents who were planning to adopt two young children who had been sexually abused. The adoptive mother's response to the book is best described in her own words.

After reading the book I felt really distressed. I couldn't sleep. I kept asking myself 'Do these things really happen to children? The parts that upset me most were about very young children -babies and toddlers who had been sexually abused in their own families. There was one incident about a 3 1/2 year old boy who had been forced to take part in oral sex - that really 'got' to me. I felt so dreadfully sad, confused and angry...
I kept asking myself ' What kind of person would do that to a child?"

This adoptive mother's reaction is not unusual. There are few topics which provoke so many conflicting emotions as the issue of sexual abuse of children. Disbelief, repugnance, hostility and total powerlessness may become strangely interwoven together. If such distress can be experienced by adults reading about the subject, it is difficult to estimate how much greater the pain and confusion must be for children who have been the victims of abuse. What exactly is sexual abuse? Of course there are degrees of abuse and the term may mean something different in each circumstance where it occurs. In the study which I undertook sexual abuse rarely occurred in isolation and was often combined with other forms of physical and emotional neglect. The following excerpt from the book portrays some of the real experiences which children suffered.

Within the context of this study it was rare for children to be mere observers of sexual behaviour occurring between other people. The norm was for children to be intimately involved. Sometimes children were ' touched' sexually or forced to ' touch' an adult sexually. In some instances full sexual intercourse occurred. Anal, oral or vaginal abuse were sometimes associated with cruelty. Physical objects such as knitting needles, tooth brushes, knives and sticks were all used in children's genitals. Torture featured in some cases. Restraining children, tying them to bed, shaving and burning pubic hair were additional distressing aspects. Sex rings occurred. Sometimes as many as 9 or 10 adults were involved in a range of sexual activity with whole families of children. Children's bodies were sold for MONEY".

The total picture is a very distressing one. Faced with the reality of such abuse how should we respond as Christians?

WHO IS THE ABUSER OR ALLEGED ABUSER?

The study included 80 children. A quick glance at who the abuser was, in each instance, conveys a very sad feature: the abuser was always someone who was already known to the child or known to the child's original family. Father or step-father was most commonly the abuser but mother, grandparents, uncle, aunt, cousins, friends, mother's cohabitee, foster and adoptive parents also feature as abusers. The fact that the abuser was so frequently within the child's own family network demonstrates the extent to which sexual abuse is a violation of God's plan for family life.The pattern which God intended for family life depicts order. Sexual abuse destroys that order and replaces it with confusion and turmoil.

SOME DIFFICULTIES ASSOCIATED WITH DAY TO DAY CARE OF A SEXUALLY ABUSED CHILD

In this article it is only possible to highlight some of the difficulties which foster and adoptive families encountered. One of the issues which made caring for a sexually abused child significantly different from other types of fostering and adoption was the child's premature sexual awareness and the implications of this for all the family members. Of course this was not the only problem associated with the day to day care of a sexually abused child but because it was often so difficult to manage this aspect within the context of family life I intend to deal with it in some detail in this article.

SEXUAL ELEMENT:ITS IMPACT ON FOSTER AND ADOPTIVE PARENTS

Few foster and adoptive parents engaged in this work without having to handle some type of sexualised behaviour from the abused child. Overtures such as sexual touching or demands for sexual intercourse seemed to be reserved for one parent in the foster or adoptive family. There did not seem to be any definite pattern about which parent was approached. For example it did not automatically follow that children would act sexually towards the parent of the same sex as their abuser. One highly experienced parent commentating on sexual episodes with a ten-year-old foster boy suggested that the gender of the parent was immaterial:

“He was sitting opposite me flirting with me. I don't think that it would have mattered too much if I had been the dog or the cat. He had been sexually abused by his father, who was the main carer. Okay, I was female but I was still the main carer”.

It was not unusual for the parent who was receiving sexual overtures to experience rejection simultaneously from the child. The form which rejection took varied from case to case. It could be a blanket refusal to communicate, a fretful withdrawal or a more aggressive approach which included physical onslaughts of abuse. The fact that this parent often had no rapport with the child other than this attempted sexual rapport made it exceptionally difficult for the family to know exactly how to respond.

Even very young children were capable of sexualised behaviour. Patricia was only three years old, but her behaviour had clear sexual overtones.

“Patricia was so disturbed at night. She would waken in the middle of the night to masturbate. She would lie on the bed with her legs wide apart. It was an obvious invitation to me to ‘come on'."

Adoptive or foster fathers only occasionally provided useful insights into how difficult the experience of sexual touching had been for them. Perhaps because more interviews were completed with women than with men this featured more frequently with foster and adoptive mothers. A number of women felt strongly that it was an issue which literature on sexual abuse had failed to address. Families who had participated in training courses felt that it was a glaring omission from these programmes also.

“Courses talk about men protecting themselves. Why do they never talk about the mum? It was the most creepy thing that I ever experienced. Nobody prepared me for that."

The sentiments expressed by one adoptive mother were echoed in other interviews also.

“He touched the top of my breast. My blood ran cold. I could feel the imprint of his hand for hours afterwards. I felt like I was being abused.”

Children who had been treated as sexual partners in their own home environment expected an identical pattern when they joined their foster or adoptive family.

“Shortly after they came, our own girls went to grandma's for the weekend. Our foster girls Amy (7) and Emma (4) went frantic. I could not get them to go to bed. In the end it turned out that they assumed that my husband usually went to bed with our girls and as they were away thought, ‘It'll be us tonight”'

Some children had developed the technique of using their bodies sexually to gain favour with their abuser. Now, replicating these patterns of behaviour with their foster and adoptive families, they were confused to discover that they were unable to achieve the same results:

“One of the girls had a horrific tantrum. She was threatening to throw herself out of the window. She stormed upstairs shouting a load of abuse. At 6pm she appeared on the stairway in the most revealing nightie. She started crawling downstairs face forward on her stomach. She had her face up towards me. Everything about her was provocative. She put her hands on my legs and started to sidle up my legs. It was her way of saying “sorry”. It was learned behaviour.

There was immense confusion in some children's minds about the roles of individuals in the family. The case of 12 year old Tim vividly portrays this. Tim's father died when he was 7 years old. Since his father's death his mother had used him as her regular sexual partner. Consequently, sexual activity between mother and son had become the norm for Tim. A high degree of patience and understanding was essential as Tim brought his own skewed interpretation of relationships into his new family:

“He asks me if I love him, why can I not show it in a physical way? He wants sex. To him that's what mums and sons do. He needs cuddling. The problem is how to allow him the contact he needs and where to draw the line. When he approaches me suggestively, I reject him. I used to say to him ‘You're approaching me as a boyfriend'. He had no idea what I meant and he used to get so frustrated.”

Some children had been involved in a three-way sexual relationship with their parents. This frequently involved the child being taken into bed with both parents when sexual intercourse occurred, and being invited or forced to participate in the sexual act. 12 year old Susan had experienced this type of family lifestyle. When she was placed for adoption with Jane and Ray Smith she made valiant efforts to instigate the same type of sexual behaviour with her new family. Whenever any physical contact occurred between Jane and Ray, Susan quickly imitated this behaviour. For example, when Jane sat on Ray's knee, Susan would jump on as soon as Jane got off and want to receive the same warm caresses from Ray. The Smith family found this very difficult to manage. Privately Jane seethed with anger, but she did not find it easy to admit to anyone just how jealous she felt. On the other hand Ray felt sorry for Susan because she had missed out on so much physical attention. Denying Susan this type of warm physical contact was, in his mind, equated with failing to meet one of the child's most basic needs. In some placements these situations ignited all sorts of unexpected emotional responses and could all too easily escalate to crisis.

Susan's case is just one example of how adept children are at creating rifts between adults. Many more examples could be cited. In one placement where the parents separated and the placement disrupted, the adoptive father did not conceal the fact that the stresses of the placement had contributed to divorce proceedings. In other placements families readily acknowledged how divisive the child's behaviour had been:

“She tried to drive a wedge between us. She used me as a weapon with my husband. She would skirt around him looking for a reaction. He found it difficult. She thought that she was an adult. She was trying to compete for a higher place in the family than a child's.”

THE IMPACT ON OTHER CHILDREN IN THE FAMILY

The sexual element not only made an impact on the adults in the family. Children were affected also. Eighty six per cent of the placements were made with families who already had other children ranging in age from babies to adolescents.

Most families made some attempt to prepare the other children in a general way for the arrival of a new foster or adoptive child. Very few made any effort in advance of the placement to talk with their children about the sexual abuse aspect and how this might affect them. Some felt this would be unfair on the new child, while others were concerned about instigating prejudice or fear. At times it seemed premature to talk about facts which might later be disproved. The most common approach was for parents to make general comments to their children like:

“If X does anything unusual let us know immediately”.

With this word of caution underpinning the placement, parents approached the task with their eyes and ears open. They were ready to intervene if anything of an inappropriate sexual nature began to affect the other children.

However attuned parents were to their own children's needs, sexually abused children often exerted an influence before parents had time to intervene. Occasionally abused children decided to tell their story to a child in the family rather than to an adult. There were instances of children as young as 2½ being involved in this way. In another case a 4 year old boy disclosed unexpectedly to his foster family late one evening after all the other children had gone to bed. The next morning as soon as he was awake, he rushed into the 8 year old girl's bedroom and, while she was getting ready for school, he poured out his entire story to her. Naturally she was startled. She had never heard anyone talk about this type of thing before. Her parents were themselves still recovering from the shock of the disclosure which had occurred less than 24 hours previously. They had not had adequate time to do the groundwork with her.

Sometimes one of the children in the family happened to be present when the disclosure was made to an adult. This happened to 10 year old Kerry who suffered from cerebral palsy. By chance she was in the bedroom with her mother when her 4 year old adoptive brother Karl started to talk about his abuse for the first time. Karl expressed anger, bitterness and resentment. With his adoptive mother pinned to the wall, he began hitting and biting her as his disjointed story slowly emerged. Looking on, Kerry feared that her mother would be injured. She could not understand the complex dynamics of this emotional scene. In this situation Kerry's mother not only had to cope with Karl's distress, but also had to produce explanations to pacify her daughter.

Sexually abused children brought an increased awareness of sexual issues into the family. Some families talked about their children's “innocence being destroyed” as they listened to lurid stories of abuse. Parents could not totally control the verbal and non-verbal cues which their children received:

“They were totally obsessed with lovers and willies. They were always drawing pictures of willies. They were crude with the girls. They were always trying to shock them.”

The impact of sexual abuse on other children was not merely confined to verbal communication. In 51 per cent of the placements some type of sexual activity was directed towards another child in the family. This included a wide range of behaviour: kissing other children open-mouthed; peering at them in the toilet; being obsessed with a baby's genitals; sexual play; touching; clawing; lying on top of other children sexually; inappropriate displaying of the body; removing their own and other children's underclothing. Some parents were left with nagging doubts about the likelihood of these incidents escalating into more serious sexual episodes. Others worried that their children might enjoy the experience and want to imitate it with their peers. However, there was no indication of these fears being realised.

These events and incidents spurred families into action. A number used these opportunities to gather all the children around them and to teach them the rudimentary facts about relationships. Books on ‘good' and ‘bad' touching were useful aids. Many families perceived these events as having positive rather than negative consequences because they force a new openness about sexual issues among all family members and opened a quality of communication which had not previously been possible. Others struggled to know where they should begin. Sex education was difficult enough: now they were faced with having to find words and phrases to explain sexual abuse.. Despite the degree of sexualised behaviour exhibited in families, sexual issues were by no means the ones which made the most profound impact on the other children. A more crucial issue was the fact that the abused child often absorbed so much parental time and energy that other children were pushed aside. Adoptive and foster parents often felt guilty about this. They were the first to acknowledge that it was hard for them to divide themselves evenly between all their children. Some made no secret of the fact that the one practical outcome of parenting a sexually abused child was that their other children missed out on their attention and affection. A number of parents described their sense of weariness associated with the abused child's craving for attention and affection. These demands were exacerbated by the need to supervise all the abused child's activities to ensure that sexualised incidents did not escalate and to protect everyone from the risk of allegations of sexual abuse.

Positive factors for other children in the family were not easy to find. The toll on family life of re-parenting a sexually abused child extended beyond the adults in the family and affected the other children also. It was often a case of other children surviving despite the placement, because of their own inner resources, rather than thriving or finding fulfilment through the experience of having an abused child in their home.

HOW SHOULD WE RESPOND?

Faced with such an emotive subject as the sexual abuse of children it is easy to want to ‘switch off'. Excessive media coverage on the issue may make us immune to the tragedy of it. Reports of ritual or sexual abuse may leave us relatively unaffected because these problems seem to exist at a distance from us. Reading about the experience of foster and adoptive families depicted in this article may seem unreal and ‘someone else's problem'.

As Christians we have a responsibility to educate ourselves on this sensitive subject. We assume that the problem is a distant one when the reality is that sexual abuse may be occurring much closer to hand than we ever anticipated. It is unhelpful to have preconceptions about who an abuser might or might not be. The reality is that there might be a child suffering sexual abuse in your own family circle, in your neighbourhood, or even in your church. Sadly it is not impossible that the abuser could even be a highly respected member of your church. We need to be sensitive and alert to the reality and not close down the conversation when a child chooses to disclose this ‘secret' to us. Overt sexual behaviour from a child which seems odd and inappropriate, sexualised language, and drawings associated with sexual happenings do not ‘prove' that sexual abuse has occurred, but they should raise the question in our minds. ‘Has this child been sexually abused?' As one experienced foster parent who took part in this study commented:

“The child's behaviour will reveal a lot... listen carefully to behaviour. It may be the only ‘language' that the child can ever use.

People reading this article may feel interested in rising to the challenge of fostering or adopting a sexually abused child. Learn as much as you can about sexually abused children before you take such a step. Even if you already have fostering or adoption experience you may not have thought about some of the special difficulties associated with re-parenting a sexually abused child. Talk to other families who have lived with the reality. If you then decide to proceed you will have a unique opportunity to help a child struggle with the pain of abuse, to disentangle right from wrong, and to learn first hand about the positives about family life. At times this is likely to be a painful and stressful experience for everyone concerned. The majority of families who took part in this study were keen to emphasise the rewarding aspects also. One foster mother commented:

“Just to see the look of fear and shame on the child's face turn to normality has made it all so worthwhile".

 

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