Having our children begin to leave our company to go with friends takes a lot of trust, and is a big step in family development.
There is always the possibility that either your child or the other party are going to make a poor choice when they are not being supervised.
Although we can’t keep our children nestled under our wing forever, new insights into sexual predators may want you to keep the flock a little closer to the nest for a while longer.
It is being reported that an increasing number of sexual assaults on children are being done by other children who have been exposed to pornography, calling for action by parents and control of media devices.
In Kansas City, Missouri Children’s Mercy has one of the highest number of sexual assaults cases in the United States, according to the International Association of Forensic Nurses.
In 2017, they saw a spike in sexually abused minors, reaching as high as 444 patients, or around 1,000 patients when children who report abuse days later are considered.
A majority of the victims were innocent girls between the ages of 4 and 8. Reinforcing a mother’s worst fear that their little princesses are vulnerable to sexual predators.
This frightening upward climb in child sexual assault cases is suspected to be the result of increased access to pornography by boys and young men.
Heide Olson is the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner for Children’s Mercy, and she revealed that there are young offender like they have never seen, primarily between the ages of 11 and 15, according to LifeSite News.
“I think [what] was kind of shocking to us all as we were collecting this data, is that almost half of our perpetrators are minors,” reported Olson.
How sad is it that our children are not even safe with other children? We have to think twice about every play date, birthday party, and church function, because of the amount of children interacting unsupervised directly.
It only takes a moment for a child to be sexually assaulted, changing the way they view the world for the rest of their life.
Sexual assaults are not brought on out of nowhere. Olson thinks that it is a “learned behavior”, according to LifeSite News.
One would assume the child had to see sexual acts in person, through a media device, or magazine. Although, in some cases, it is from the child being abused themselves.
Local Kansas City news channel KSHB reported:
“Nurses are finding more and more that pornography is playing a role in these cases. That can include a victim being forced to see porn, a victim reporting that the perpetrator said they’d watched porn, being forced to do something shown in a pornographic video, or a victim being recorded doing a sex act.”
All of these scenarios are heartbreaking, proving the damaging effects of pornography on mind, body, and soul, as Mommy Underground has previously reported.
Kids as young as preschoolers are now being exposed to obscene depictions and scenarios that are far beyond their comprehension, and portray inaccurately healthy relationships.
How is a child able to process such information? They don’t understand how hurtful the acts they witnessed are to themselves and others, so they often play them out.
In an effort to search for a reason behind this huge affliction on humanity, Olson said, “How are we, as a society, failing in such a way that we have 11, 12, and 14-year-old boys, primarily, committing violent sexual assaults?”
The director of counseling services at the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault, Rene McCreary, speaks with countless children who have been victims or offenders of sexual abuse and she says that the increase of sexual behavior problems coincide with the increased access to pornography, according to LifeSite News.
She adds, “Pornography has become more violent,” and that “80 percent of the 15-most-viewed films portray women being hit, spit on, kicked, called degrading names.”
According to McCreary, 25% of all sex crimes are committed by minors!
If child sexual abuse is directly correlated with pornography, then drastically reducing the risk of our children being exposed by any means is necessary to end this damaging cycle.
It is already known that increased screen time in children is damaging for them psychologically, affecting academic outcomes and behavior.
There are programs that can be put on tablets, televisions, and computers that block the user from viewing pornographic sites.
However, these sometimes fail, requiring minors to be supervised when on media devices to ensure the safety of their minds.
You can have certain times that media devices are allowed to be used in the home, in the same room as a parent.
Talk to your children about the dangers of viewing inappropriate material, how they need to guard their hearts.
Give them examples of scenarios where they might be exposed, such as with a friend or through a pop-up advertisement, and how they should deal with it, whether it is by leaving an environment or being assertive in what is morally right.
Pornography is an epidemic that has plagued relationships for decades, and now it has infiltrated the lives of our children.
We must do all we can to stop children from being exposed to pornography while keeping them safe from the others who have been misguided.
Please let us know in the comments section if you have precautions you take to keep your children safe from sexual assault.