Grooming, by design, is difficult to detect. Here are four ways to prevent child sexual abuse.
SHEBOYGAN - Often parents and other adults never suspect, or at times even believe, that someone they know and trust would sexually abuse or hurt a child.
Many people still imagine that people who commit sexual abuse are strangers to victims and threatening figures in society.
While that absolutely happens, that’s the “exception,” said Ian Henderson, director of legal systems with the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
“Most often, it’s someone who’s known, and when we’re talking about child victims, someone who has access and is in a position of trust,” Henderson said.
What is grooming?
Grooming is a deliberate process whereby one person gradually erodes someone else’s — often a child’s — natural boundaries, with the goal of developing a sexual relationship grounded in secrecy, Henderson said.
Grooming mostly occurs when there are significant imbalances of power between two people, such as adult-child relationships, teacher-student relationships or relationships that human traffickers cultivate with vulnerable adults.
Usually, grooming starts with non-criminal behaviors — such as focusing a lot of attention on a particular child, giving gifts or filling emotional needs — but they’re all part of a larger plan to cross over into behaviors that violate personal and sexual boundaries, which may be criminal, Henderson said.
Grooming is also designed to make the child feel culpable. Perpetrators may use emotional manipulation or threats to maintain the relationship, such as telling a child that if they tell anyone about the relationship, something bad will happen to them and to the person who’s harming them.
Perpetrators will try to make parents and other adults around a child comfortable with them.
“When they start sexually abusing the child, the child has been so groomed by them that at times they’re afraid to come forward because this is a person that’s very important to them, is a person that they might love,” said Mary Kleman, a prevention manager at Children’s Wisconsin.
“It’s the same thing with the family," she said. "The perpetrator has become a trusted friend or family member, important to their family, so they’re able to abuse the child without anyone suspecting there’s something going on."
While some states, such as Illinois, have looked at criminalizing grooming, grooming is not a crime in Wisconsin.
But behaviors such as showing pornography to a child or sexual contact with a child are crimes, and prosecutors can also show evidence of grooming to build an argument that a crime occurred, Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski said.
For example, Sheboygan police and prosecutors investigated the context of a Sheboygan Lutheran High School graduate’s relationship with a former teacher that developed soon after she turned 18, after she alleged he groomed and sexually assaulted her. The teacher was not charged with any crimes related to her report.
Sometimes, officials may be able to prosecute grooming behaviors as disorderly conduct, which includes behavior that is unreasonably profane, indecent, or against the morals and values of the community. Sending texts with the intent to abuse that use obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest a lewd act is also a misdemeanor, Urmanski said.
“There’s a lot of different statutes, (prosecution) depends very much on the fact-specific situation, and I think it also depends on investigation and prosecutors, of how aggressive they want to look at things,” he said.
Four ways to prevent child sexual abuse
Children thrive when they have caring adults around them; the more caring adults they have, the better, Kleman said.
“We don’t want to make it sound like everyone out there is a perpetrator and that parents should trust no one,” she said.
That said, parents can adopt simple good habits to protect children from harm.
1. Talk about healthy sexuality and consent.
Grooming is one reason it’s important to talk to children early on about healthy sexuality and consent, Henderson said.
Parents should keep those conversations open rather than making it a taboo subject in the home.
It is also important for parents to let kids know that it’s OK to say no.
“If a child is not comfortable giving grandpa a kiss goodbye, for whatever reason, that’s OK. If they’re not comfortable sitting on Santa’s lap, because he can be a scary figure through the eyes of a child, honor when kids say no, and tell them that’s OK,” Kleman said.
“Because when we give those messages that, ‘Oh, it’s OK, it’s an adult, go ahead and do that,’ a child is not going to tell the difference between Santa and Grandpa and the perpetrator,” Kleman said.
2. Listen to what kids are saying and ask questions.
Children don’t often come out and say, “This person is abusing me,” but they will give subtle indicators they are uncomfortable with someone, Kleman said.
“They might say, ‘I don’t want to be with this person anymore,’" Kleman said. "They may want to avoid being alone with someone who traditionally they have enjoyed being with. They may come back from an outing with that person and seem out of sorts. They could say something that just doesn’t seem right.
“As adults, oftentimes we ignore that,” she added. “If we very intentionally listen to kids and what they’re saying, oftentimes they’re trying to tell us something without coming out outright.”
If something doesn’t seem right, adults should talk to the child, asking questions like, “What did you do when you spent time with XYZ? How did that go?”
3. Avoid putting kids in situations that may seem risky.
When parents take their kids to youth-serving organizations, they should ask questions like: What are your policies around hiring? What are your policies around kids being alone one-on-one with individuals? What type of education do you have for your staff?
These are “universal precautions,” Kleman said.
“We certainly do not want to suspect everyone," Kleman added. "We also know that we cannot pick out who might be wanting to harm a child, and that perpetrators are often trusted by not only the child, but others.”
4. Act on suspicions.
People need to feel comfortable talking to other adults about child safety, Kleman said.
“Let’s say something raised suspicion, such as you continuously see someone alone with kids,” she said.
“We have to be comfortable enough to say, ‘Hey, I see you alone a lot with kids. I’m not comfortable with you doing that with my child,’” Kleman said. “We would have no problem as a society saying that to someone if they were doing something like letting kids play on a hazardous piece of equipment. ... It’s all safety messaging. We know kids are safer when they’re with more than one adult.”
Another example might be asking an adult why they are giving a certain gift to a child. Does that make sense? Is that normal? Ask about it, Henderson said.
Lastly, anyone can report suspicions of child sexual abuse to county human services or law enforcement.
“The biggest thing to remember is when you make that report, you are not accusing someone," Kleman said. "You are saying there is a suspicion, and you want professionals to look into the situation."
Henderson said: “Bottom line, adults have a responsibility to do something, say something, take action — not just sitting with that discomfort if something doesn’t feel right.”
For more information and resources, visit Children's Wisconsin's Awareness to Action initiative website or Darkness to Light's webpage on grooming and red flag behaviors.
Reach Maya Hilty at 920-400-7485 or MHilty@sheboygan.gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @maya_hilty.
This article originally appeared on Sheboygan Press: Child sexual abuse: 4 ways to prevent it and warning signs of grooming
