[najida]

Exactly.

Kids don't think like adults. They don't react like adults to stressors. What Shawn did and is doing is textbook common. If he HAD done anything different, it would be more the exception.

He was just 11, a boy when taken. In as little as a month, his total sense of self could have been totally destroyed.

[keats5]

So Najida, what should we teach our kids? I'm interested in your opinion, because you seem to understand how they think.

I've had three run ins with perverts trying to get to my kids. One was a homosexual YMCA counselor in charge of boys' group showers, one was a guy who parked outside my home waiting for my daughter's school bus and another homosexual stalked my teen son in our neighborhood gym. (This is considered a nice neighborhood, too!) Thankfully, the kids kept safe due to their own reports, our own presence and some alert adults.

I try to teach my kids that abuse is not their fault, that the shame connects to the pervert and not them and that we'd love them even if we heard awful things about them. Still, there's a difference between hearing parents say such things and acting like you believe them.

Any ideas?