If you have kids involved in sports, you should check out my friend Janis Meridiths’ blog JBM Thinks: helping you on your journey of sports, family, faith and life and read the great post on Sexual Abuse in Kids’ Sports: 10 Tips For Keeping Children Safe. It was written by Jill Starishevsky.
Gone are the days when the coach could smack a child’s bottom for a job well done…or are they? There is a certain familiarity in youth sports that is inherent and sometimes welcomed. However, with the recent widespread news of sexual abuse occurring on sports teams, how is a parent whose child participates in a sport to keep him or her safe from sexual abuse?
We used to teach children about “stranger danger”, but studies have shown that most sexual abuse occurs at the hands of someone known to the child. 93% of all child sexual abuse is committed by someone the child knows and the parents trust.
Coaches, as the nation has recently discovered, fit well into this statistic. Unfortunately, this person, who is always showing an interest in your child and working to develop trust, can sometimes be a child predator.
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