In today's times, we have some adults in leadership positions who openly play favorites. They aren't "comfortable" standing up for EVERY child only so
In today’s times, we have some adults in leadership positions who openly play favorites. They aren’t “comfortable” standing up for EVERY child only some children. A select few. Every child is precious. Children who are autistic are precious. Children with intellectual, developmental, physical, sensory, and communication disabilities are precious. Children who use mobility devices, communication boards, sign language, assistive technology, or personal-care support are precious.
Girls are precious. Boys are precious.
No child should disappear from our conversations about safety simply because protecting them requires adults to listen differently. What Does “MAP” Mean?
“MAP” is an acronym for minor-attracted person. It is a term used by some people to describe an adult or older adolescent who experiences sexual attraction toward children or minors.
The term is controversial.
Some clinicians and prevention programs use it when discussing people who acknowledge such attractions and seek help before harming a child. Others strongly object to the phrase because it can make a serious threat to children sound like a neutral personal identity.
Research examining the term found that it originated in online pro-pedophile communities before being adopted by some academic researchers as an allegedly less stigmatizing alternative to words such as pedophile. Its movement into professional language remains heavily disputed.
Parents should understand an important distinction:
A person reporting an attraction is not automatically proof that the person has committed a crime.
At the same time, children’s safety must never depend upon adults minimizing, romanticizing, normalizing, or treating sexual interest in children as “harmless identity expression.”
The health, safety, and well-being of children is serious business.
Children cannot provide informed consent to sexual activity with adults. The CDC defines child sexual abuse as involving a person under 18 in sexual activity the child does not comprehend, cannot consent to, or is not developmentally prepared to consent to.
The child must remain at the center.
Parents Should Watch Behavior, Not Merely Labels
People who harm children do not always announce disturbing beliefs or use identifiable terminology. Some appear friendly, generous, responsible, spiritual, helpful, or deeply invested in children.
About 90 percent of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by someone known and trusted by the child or the child’s family. PAUSE.
People use this as a “gotcha” and write LOL at the end. (The glee around a child being harmed is telling)
But, nearly every human being is connected to other people in some way, shape or form.
Jersey Bridgeman.♥
Jersey was six years old and lived in Arkansas. After her parents’ divorce, she was living with her mother, who worked long hours. A neighboring couple, Zachary and Amanda Holly, had become family friends and regularly helped care for Jersey and her younger sister. They were the kind of neighbors many parents hope to have—people who would help put the girls to bed when their mother came home late from work.
According to investigators, Zachary Holly entered Jersey’s home during the night, abducted her, sexually assaulted her, and killed her. He was later convicted and sentenced to life without parole.
What makes Jersey’s case so heartbreaking is that it wasn’t a stranger forcing his way into a family’s life. It was someone who had earned trust over time by being helpful, dependable, and familiar. That’s a recurring lesson in child protection. That’s also a recurring occurrence.
May this precious and innocent angel rest in peace.
All we can do now is use what we learn to protect other children.
“Known to the victim” includes teachers, child and adult neighbors, extended family, congregation members, older children, larger children, the person they see regularly in passing in the neighborhood, babysitters, coaches, instructor of extracurricular activities etc…
This means safety cannot be built around “stranger danger” alone.
Parents should pay attention when someone:
- Seeks unusual amounts of private access to a child
- Creates opportunities to be alone with children
- Gives one child excessive gifts, privileges, money, or attention
- Communicates secretly with a child
- Encourages a child to hide conversations or activities
- Frequently ignores family rules
- Insists that a child owes them hugs, kisses, affection, or loyalty
- Gradually crosses physical boundaries through tickling, wrestling, bathing, changing clothes, massages, or unnecessary touching
- Treats reasonable parental supervision as insulting or controlling
- Tries to become indispensable to a struggling family
- Undermines the child’s relationship with protective adults
- Sexualizes children, makes sexual jokes about them, or describes them as seductive, mature, flirtatious, or “fast”
- Defends adult-child sexual relationships as loving, natural, misunderstood, or consensual
Grooming commonly involves gaining trust and access, becoming important in the child’s life, creating secrecy or isolation, crossing boundaries, and using fear or false affection to maintain control. They seek access to BECOME known to the victim.
Not every uncomfortable interaction proves abuse. But patterns deserve attention. Adults do not need courtroom-level evidence before strengthening supervision, ending private access, documenting concerns, or asking questions.
Protect Children Online
Online grooming may begin through games, social media, group chats, direct messages, livestreams, fandom spaces, tutoring platforms, or apps that seem designed for children.
Parents should know:
- Which platforms their children use
- Who can contact them privately
- Whether messages disappear
- Whether location sharing is active
- Whether the child can send or receive images
- Whether adults participate in the space
- How to block and report users
- Whether caregivers or aides have access to the child’s accounts
Regular, calm conversations about healthy and unhealthy online communication make it easier for children to disclose troubling interactions.
Do not begin by threatening to confiscate the device forever. A child may stay silent if they believe reporting harm will cost them their only source of friendship, recreation, communication, or independence.
Remove the danger. Do not punish the child for being targeted.
Believe Children Without Conducting an Interrogation
When a child tells you something concerning:
Remain as calm as possible.
Say:
“I believe you.”
“You did the right thing by telling me.”
“This is not your fault.”
“You are not in trouble.”
“I am going to help keep you safe.”
Do not pressure the child to repeat the story to multiple relatives. Do not ask leading questions or demand every detail. Preserve messages, images, names, dates, behavioral changes, and other relevant information. Contact appropriate child-protection or law-enforcement authorities and seek trauma-informed professional support.
If immediate danger exists, remove the child from access to the person and contact emergency services.
Protection Is an Adult Responsibility
Children may be taught boundaries, but they should never be blamed for failing to stop a determined adult.
A child may freeze.
A child may comply out of fear.
A child may love or depend upon the person causing harm.
A disabled child may need that person for food, movement, communication, medication, or personal care.
A child may not have words for what happened.None of that makes the child responsible.
Adults must build environments where no person receives unquestioned, unmonitored, unrestricted access to children.
The question is not merely, “Does this person seem nice?”
The stronger questions are:
What access do they have?
Who supervises that access?
Are boundaries respected?
Can the child communicate privately?
Would the child be believed?
Does the organization investigate concerns?
Are disabled children included in every safety policy?
Does anyone become defensive when reasonable protections are introduced?
@thelifeofkarlos And before y’all say it, no this is not Anti Tran. This is not Anti gay. This is pro-education and information. #maps #transrights #gayrights #transageism #bi ♬ Mysterious and Sad – Beats by Lucky
Children who are autistic are precious. Children with intellectual, developmental, physical, sensory, and communication disabilities are precious. Children who use mobility devices, communication boards, sign language, assistive technology, or personal-care support are precious.