The sexual abuser\/pedophile\/molestor\/predator often looks and acts just like everybody else.\u00a0 We often have this vision of the creepy man in a trenchcoat who lurks\u00a0around\u00a0unassumably, or the perverted looking guy who drives the ice cream truck.\u00a0 However, while some abusers may in fact look like those characters, most often, the abuser is a “normal looking” member of society.\u00a0 They may even be well respected\u00a0members of\u00a0their community.\u00a0 Typically, they are\u00a0likeable individuals who work everyday and would be classified as an all-around “nice guy” by the neighbors when the cameras are rolling.<\/p>\n
The ploy of the sexual predator is…. gaining trust!! No parent with their wits about them would ever leave their children in the presence of, let alone the care of, some smarmy looking individual who doesnt “appear” to have their child’s best interest at heart.\u00a0 This is why we, as parents, are often fooled by teachers, coaches, clergy, doctors, uncles, grandfathers, and dads.\u00a0 These people spend hours upon hours gaining\u00a0our trust\u00a0to the extent that parents eventually push their children into the beckoning arms of these predators.\u00a0 Parents take behavioral cues at face value and assume that by virture of one’s appearance,\u00a0occupation, or familial status, they are trustworthy and wouldn’t harm our children.\u00a0 This is the farthest from the truth!<\/p>\n
Stop looking at people and assigning labels to them as if these labels truly define who they are!\u00a0 As Natalie Lamb, President & Founder of It’s Your Choice, states, “Nice is a choice, not a character trait.” Many people choose to be nice because of ulterior motives or a hidden agenda.\u00a0 Predators are some of the nicest, most alturistic, and charitable people\u00a0you might come across.\u00a0 Think about it….of all the\u00a0stories in the news of late, how many of the predators were actually reported as mean-spirited individuals with hateful and ugly mannerisms?\u00a0 Case and point….Jerry Sandusky was such a “nice guy” that he would pick up underprivileged boys and let them spend the night, take them to the Penn State campus and introduce them to the team, and he served as a father figure\/role model.\u00a0\u00a0 Is that the behavior of a pedophile……ABSOLUTELY!\u00a0 But my most people’s account, they would have never suspected him of being a danger to\u00a0ALL the kids around him, even his own.<\/p>\n
Several years ago before my daughter disclosed her own sexual abuse, I was at a sporting event for young people.\u00a0 The team I had gone to see lost the game.\u00a0 Immediately after the game, the coach took one of\u00a0the\u00a0player into a\u00a0room alone and closed the door.\u00a0\u00a0I was disturbed by this and began to ask those\u00a0around me why the coach went in the room alone\u00a0with the player.\u00a0\u00a0Several of the other parents said the player\u00a0was the coach’s\u00a0child and while the whole scene still didn’t sit quite well with me, I\u00a0let it go.\u00a0 Over the\u00a0years, I\u00a0often think back\u00a0on that incident,\u00a0especially after my\u00a0daughter disclosed, and wondered if there was really more to that story than what met\u00a0the eye.\u00a0 After all, to everyone else the coach was a nice well respected man who loved the kids….but what if he wasn’t?\u00a0 My point being, if you have alarm bells going off in your head,\u00a0don’t be so quick to dismiss your gut.<\/p>\n
We, as parents, just have to wake up and realize\u00a0that this evil exists in plain sight, and predators have made it their life’s work to weasel their way into our lives by design and for the purpose of harming our kids…..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The sexual abuser\/pedophile\/molestor\/predator often looks and acts just like everybody else.\u00a0 We often have this vision of the creepy man in a trenchcoat who lurks\u00a0around\u00a0unassumably, or the perverted looking guy who drives the ice cream truck.\u00a0 However, while some abusers may in fact look like those characters, most often, the abuser is a “normal looking” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comfortinthestorm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comfortinthestorm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comfortinthestorm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comfortinthestorm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comfortinthestorm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/comfortinthestorm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241,"href":"https:\/\/comfortinthestorm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comfortinthestorm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comfortinthestorm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comfortinthestorm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}