Protecting Your Child from Sexual Abuse: What You Need to Know to Keep Your Kids Safe

by Cynthia Calkins, Elizabeth Jeglic

A guide that empowers and equips us with the right knowledge and concrete strategies to curb sexual violence on our children. Sexual violence against our children is a real and everyday danger. Protecting them from the threat of sex predators is one of our top concerns and fears—for both parents and educators—as we send our sons and daughters off to school and play. Unfortunately, not many of us know the right way—or even how—to think about and address such a sensitive topic. Protecting Your Child From Sexual Abuse empowers parents by providing much needed knowledge about a subject that is hard for many to discuss, much less take action on. Seeking both to present the right information as well as dispel misconceptions based on unfounded fears, this guide presents comprehensive research and evidence in an accessible way, equipping guardians with practical solutions, concrete tools, and tangible skills designed to keep kids of all ages—from child to tween to teen—safe from sex crimes. Learn about the realities of child sex offenders, how online registries function, what threats and risks exist online, what to do if you suspect abuse, and how to develop open and honest communication with your children on these dangers. With easily digestible facts and figures, highlighted key points, and discussion group questions, Protecting Your Child From Sexual Abuse is a necessary guide for any parenting or community group to begin the conversation—and develop sexual violence prevention strategies in their communities that will make a difference.

178 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 13, 2018

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a short but solid primer on childhood sexual abuse. Things seem like they change fast with this topic so even though it was published in 2018, I found out while I was in the middle of reading this edition that there's a second edition that came out in 2020. You should read that one. I did like that this was research driven and spent a significant amount of time dispelling common myths about the topic and almost no time discussing scary stories of abuse. The authors surely encounter abuse horror stories on a regular basis but still stress that it's not healthy to be overprotective. They cover their bases for all ages of children but I wish they would have spent more time describing the behaviors to watch out for in order to protect small children. They could have left some of the public policy stuff out as I don't think most of their readers are picking this up as a guide for how to shape laws.

[Jordyn Reinhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Would really recommend the 2nd edition of this book!