I've had some experience in this area before- I'm an RN. I actually did an epidemiology study on this type of abuse. There are some surprisingly simple ways to protect our kids. One way is to teach your child the proper term for their body parts. This seems simple but is very important. If an abuse does happen and is investigated the child will be asked what happened. They need to be able to describe it with proper anatomical terms. If they cannot the defense attorney can argue and wins very often. So teach your kids their anatomy. Also teach them about the aspects of good touch and bad touch. There are videos available for this as well. My DD knows that it's ok to get an occasional hug from her teacher but that if it lasts longer than 3 seconds it's "bad". If we don't tell the kids what is acceptable they won't recognize something that is unacceptable. So sit down and have a frank discussion with your kids about touching. My mom is a school teacher and they are actually only allowed to hug their students from the side, no frontal hugs. Maybe tell you kids that only side hugs from coaches are ok- or use the 3 second rule like we do. They also cannot have children older than 5 sit on their laps at all or ever.
For the little ones a very common sign of this type of abuse is frequent urinary tract infections. So if you notice that your DD is having a lot of those it should raise a red flag (or she's just not wiping properly
. If you notice your child is not doing as well in school or activities as she used to- investigate. Ask some hard questions. This is our job as parents. If you notice that your little one is playing with her barbie in a disturbing way- investigate. This is a very common presentation of this type of abuse. Sorry that most of these tips lean towards little ones- this is the population I have the most experience with.
For the little ones a very common sign of this type of abuse is frequent urinary tract infections. So if you notice that your DD is having a lot of those it should raise a red flag (or she's just not wiping properly