Boz Tchividjian does great service here in this piece about sexual abuse among siblings.
The past few weeks has brought to the surface a painful topic that most of us would prefer to pretend doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, that is not an option. Juveniles’ account for more than one-third of those known to police to have committed sexual offenses against minors. Many of these young offenders are victimizing their own siblings. One study found that juveniles who sexually abuse siblings do so at a rate of approximately five times the rate of parent-child sexual abuse. Because this horror is almost too much to comprehend, most adults have not stopped to consider what to do if it is discovered that one of their children is sexually abusing another child.
Both links are 404 errors.
I’m less surprised that siblings would be committing sexual abuse at a higher rate than parent sexual abuse. When one considers a) the higher rate of exposure to pornography that juveniles today exist under, and b) the higher curiosity about sexuality that is common to juveniles, and c) the lack of sexual experience combined with a) and b). Is it any wonder that curious kids with little experience and greater curiosity should look for ways to satisfy the inordinate desires that exist and have been fostered through a disproportionately and inordinately sexualized world?
Thanks for your comments. Links have been fixed.
Mr. Butcher, what kind of preparation can parents make to avoid such outcome? I’d like to hear your thoughts as an educator and father. Many thanks.
My opinion isn’t really born of experience, since my children are still very young, but what my wife and I are doing is trying to sail the Scylla and Charybdis of Fundamentalism and Licentiousness. Fundamentalism would be trying to keep all talk of sexuality out of the question, and treating it with fear or only associating it with sinful thoughts and acts like lust or perversion. Licentiousness would be providing no filters for our children’s exposure to sexuality, or by providing too few filters and too little foundation for understanding sexuality, Biblically.
We try to talk about sexuality in terms of its appropriateness to marriage and the love of Christ typified there, and we speak about our honoring God with our bodies through modesty and proper use of what God has given us. We believe that curiosity about sex will be a natural part of our children’s maturation, so we want them to know how to think about it as God thinks about it. I don’t think we’ve cornered the market on anything, and I’d love to have more advice on the matter myself, since the culture is growing even more overexposed than it was when I was a child, and I don’t think I had the proper filters, though my parents did not fall entirely into either error.
Many thanks.