I think all you can do is continue to educate, give her the support she needs, and look toward the future without expectations. Our stories were very similar, and the ages of victims were similar. Our abuse was by a cousin, and my daughter was 4 at the time. It has been almost a year since disclosure - and we don't talk about it a lot, but I do still discuss body safety at least once every month - and she is so cute, she will "test"me by asking things like (when I am scratching her back at bedtime) she will say "can you scratch my butt" - and I will so "no, that is your private part", and she will put up her hand and high five and tell me she was "testing" me. We too had talked about body safety, and she knew she was supposed to tell me - and thankfully it was during a body safety talk that she disclosed, so it is so important to keep up those talks. She knows that if it happened with someone else she could tell me and she isn't going to get in trouble (I think she thought she would before). I think healing will be a lifelong process, and we have to remember that some of the things about her are personality. My daughter has a lot of anger (but she has since she was 2), and can verbalize that she doesn't understand why she has so much. She is adopted, and I think a lot of her personality is inherited - but the abuse certainly added an extra layer of complication to things. I told her that when we get set up with a new pediatrician (we are in a new town), that maybe we could find someone to talk to about her anger - and she said "Like Miss Julie (her therapist from the abuse)" - so I think that is what I am going to do to stay on top of things. It may be good for you to continue with a therapist with her. You have to remember too that she is growing up and her body and brain is changing every day. My daughter doesn't like to talk about her "bad" emotions - so I try to talk as much as I can, and drop the issue. I think my daughter is as happy and well adjusted as she is ever going to be - we have good days, and we have bad days - but I think it would have been no different if the abuse hadn't happened, I think a lot of ours is simply personality. Keeping a consistent bedtime and plenty of sleep is key with us, when my daughter is tired, her behavior is 100x worse, so we don't let her stay up late because it isn't worth the attitude. If you are concerned, my advise would be to seek therapy for her, and for you - to have a professional determine if this is normal behavior, or still related to the abuse. I know that getting out of the area has taken the stress off of us, and taken the "weirdness" of being in the same neighborhood away from her - there isn't a constant reminder that we don't see that family anymore because now there is distance not just the situation. Remember too that sometimes kids can feed off of your reactions - so maybe try to not let her see your stress and keep life as normal as possible. My daughter is still embarrassed about her abuse - and I continue to reassure her that she has nothing to be ashamed of and she didn't do anything wrong, and I think that is all that I can do - try to talk the blame and shame away. Hang in there, and know that you supporting her and doing what is best for her is the best thing you can do.

We recently moved as well, about a month ago. It's helped with the worry you talked about such as swing perp. However he will never be completely out of our lives because of his relationship with my husband and his family. It did help with the worry if seeing him at any time though. It didn't have much of an impact on my own thoughts and struggles.

My daughter's attitude isn't horrible all the time. But she is pretty to easy to upset. She stomps her feet and gets sassy. Similar to a tantrum. The thing is she never really went through a tantrum phase, not even as a toddler. I try talking to her about how to express her emotions in a more positive way but when she's mad, there is no talking to her. I'm wondering if we should have some family counseling sessions. We have only done that a couple of times and we didn't work much on our relationships, mostly we dealt with the abuse.

I think the answer is two fold...
One is about addressing your own anxiety over the issue and getting yourself to a place where you are knowing that you are providing her with the best care you can and understanding that the rest is out of your control. If you get too anxious, pressuring for results etc you can actually have a negative effect. I learned that mistake myself. It's soooo hard not to have anxiety or pain from this. It's like someone kicked you in the crotch and you're supposed to stay calm, keep a straight face and don't cry.
The other way you can know improvement and
#1 sign is - you know the abuse stopped and you know she's safe. That's huge! You're super fortunate. My kids still aren't safe. Other parents never found out until years and years of ongoing abuse.
- does she have anxieties? Bed wetting, toileting issues, etc - see the PTSD post of recent.
- her art work. Kids up until the age of 10 cannot lie in their art work - but can be fantastic liars verbally to hide their abuse. Read up on signs of abuse that is detectable in kids art. It has been told to me that the red flags of abuse in kids art work diminishes with appropriate counseling.

I think a major part of this is my own anxiety. I haven't done enough counseling on my own yet. We don't talk about the abuse much and only when my daughter says something first. I do still talk about body safety and whatnot probably once a month just to reinforce it. She doesn't have a lot of ongoing issues. Her attitude and emotional changes are really the biggest thing for her. She was having more nightmares, but not as much anymore and she always did have some. The other thing was that she would talk about butts, vaginas, penises, etc and she would sort of flash people after the bath. At the time, I thought it was normal age based behavior because she was 5, I didn't realize that it might be a sign of acting out. Before disclosure, I didn't worry about my kids running around the house naked after bathtime (they were 5 and 2 at the time). I was open about the human body and honest when they asked questions or wanted to know about parts, etc. When I bathed my daughter, she would always say it tickled her peepee when I would wash her. Again, ever thought anything of it until after the abuse stopped and so did that behavior. I realize how fortunate I am that she doesn't have more physical issues, but honestly I feel like it is harder for me to differentiate between her normal 6 year old emotions and the abuse related emotions. The other issue I have noticed is that she is having more trouble focusing than she used to during school. She's still doing okay grade wise, but teacher has made comments about her lack of focus sometimes.

Well I have a six and eight year old and I noticed around 1st grade huge emotional issues with having anger and strong emotions. My boys I've been told were not abused as far as the professionals can tell and they have not disclosed abuse so I would say there is some normal growing emotions at that age. Focus also is a huge problem with My oldest a,d not as much with the middle. I think kids vary especially at this age because their ability to have self control is still developing. So I think you have some normal things of dealing with how to handle strong emotions and then you have the extra layer of a child who has reason to have strong emotions and anger from the abuse. My daughter who was abused learned in counseling breathing skills, and identifying feelings and thoughts to help manage emotions. I learned how to give my child options on how to handle feelings. Right now we are working on body safety. It has been helpful. I'd say instead of trying to get to a level of normal...look at are we able to manage what is normal from a child that has suffered trauma. As above said if most of the symptoms of abuse have go be away than it's safe to say it is working and it will continue to get better. It doesn't go away but you both learn to manage the symptoms as they come up and work through General changes also.

She also learned breathing skills and other coping skills but when she gets really upset, she doesn't use them. I've noticed that a lot of her anger is when I ask her questions about something she is explaining to me. For example, one day she got home from school and was asking if warts are contagious. I asked her why she was asking and she said two girls were touching her with their warts and said she would get them. Obviously, I was upset because as a parent, I don't like other kids teasing my children. While I was asking her questions, she flipped on me and said "you always do this, just like with ---(half brothers name)". The thing is, I have only talked to her a few times about her abuse and the only time I asked any questions was when I first found out. Its good to hear that other children have some of the same issues and were not abused. It always helps put things in perspective.