Parents Whose children have been sexually abused Community Group
This group is for parents whose children have been sexually abused. We welcome both Mothers and Fathers. Here, we can offer support to one another. We can vent, cry and lift each other up. No condemning or criticizing allowed. We are here for support. We LOVE (((HUGS))) !
How do parents cope with the victim being their daughter and the perpetrader being their son? Both sons for that matter.
July of 2018 I walked into my basement to catch my 9yo daughter and 13yo son in an act that still haunts my thoughts every single day. My wife and I sent him to his grandmother's that same night to live for 6 months and receive counseling. We enrolled my daughter and my 11yo middle child in counseling as well. Once all the therapists agreed that reunification was appropriate, my older child moved back home. He's been home one year as of December 2019.
We set very strict house rules going forward. No one was allowed downstairs together, no one was allowed in each others rooms, no friends could sleep over, no one was together behind any closed doors, and a parent was home with them AT ALL TIMES. Which was hard to enforce with both of us parents working full time, but my job is luckily very flexible. The rules were followed and we had frequent check ins with my daughter. My oldest son was made to take a 20 week sexual behavior class and he seemed to be genuinely remorseful.
Now fast forward to 4 days ago, March 8th, 2020. My daughter, now 11, asks to speak to me privately. She tells me that my middle son, now 13, asks her to do the same thing that she was caught doing with the oldest brother just 1.5 years ago. After saying no several times, she eventually admitted to giving in. I confronted my middle child and his story aligned.
I moved my daughter out of my house to live with my mother the very next morning. She wrote me a note the night before saying "I don't feel safe here." These were the hardest words I've ever read in my life. So, to confirm her safety, no matter how much it's hurting me, I moved her out.
We reported the first incident to CPS and we're calling again tomorrow morning to report my second son. I don't know how to cope with this. When I look at my middle son right now, I'm just full of anger. I don't feel like a good parent to him right now and I know he has to feel alone and confused. I'm sad for my daughter and angry at myself that I couldn't keep her safe. Again.
Background info- These kids are my biological nephews and niece. I adopted them 11 years ago when the youngest girl was born. The boys were adopted at 2 and 4 years old. Both boys experienced phyisical and sexual abuse while they were with their bio parents. All three children have received therapy their entire lives and the boys were both diagnosed with PTSD. There is no contact with the bio parents and their lives right now are very stable and healthy.
Granted, your boys are victims, too, so you may want to consider finding new therapists for them as soon as possible. It may be that their current therapists have become complacent in watching for danger signs or signs of relapse. It's also likely that the boys are not being truthful with their counselors -- a shame reaction to trauma. My daughter was in therapy for 15 years before she finally disclosed what had happened to her when she was 8 -- to me, not a therapist. Secretiveness is the fruit of fearfulness. The neighbor who raped my daughter promised to kill our whole family all if she told. The constant covering-up becomes second nature, and is exceedingly difficult to detect, even by "experts" -- maybe, most of all, by those who have come to know them, and think they have the whole story. Until your boys have dealt honestly with all of their underlying shame and fears, they may be a threat to the community.
My heart breaks for you, as one who has tried nobly to do the right thing by your kin.
Others here have direct experience with sibling abuse and will surely sign in soon.
And finally, I hope you and your wife have therapists of your own. You need and deserve this one-to-one assistance.
stopitnow.org 1-888-PREVENT also has a live chat and a lot of online articles and has info and respectful listening advice from both the victim and perpetrator angles, including children who sexually harm others
support-for-families.boards.net online support for families of sex offenders, including some that are also victims or have the victims in their family
When their natural course of healthy sexuality is interrupted by abuse it’s so difficult in my opinion to help correct that because it’s also a maturity of their minds to really understand the gravity of their actions. They may have no real sense of why they are even acting out in those ways. Thankfully you have intervened and that’s the best hope to stop it. And that your daughter was brave enough to tell.
Hopefully the counselors can do a good job of working with the boys on why they found themselves in that situation and making those decisions and the consequences. They now have to take ownership of their own bodies and being appropriate. It’s not easy in today’s world. But it’s not impossible. There is a set of books that are for men and adolescents called every mans battle might see if there is any help there. Helping them not feel like there is something wrong with them it’s the behavior. at their ages there is every reason to believe they can do better.
I’m so sorry I know the feeling of doing everything you can know to do right and still deal with such overwhelming loss. Make sure no inappropriate things were happening between the boys and no access to pornography.