[lucyjoy]

With most the sex abuse therapy with my children, part of the treetment was dealing directly with the issue of the person involved. I have a child I suspect was sexually abused in an orphange as a very young child. He's currantly six, but the abuse
would have occurred before 3.5 years. What type of treetment is used for children this young when unsure of the particulars?
As common as sex abuse is, therapists seem reluctant to do much to deal with it at a young age.

[lambeausam]

I have a good friend who endured a similar situation. She remembered very clearly all the details of the abuse except the identity of the perpetrator. Her therapist had her create her own impression of the person. She explained to me that the therapist believed that if he addressed the incident and the resulting emotions/reactions, other details might surface. Even though some key details of the abuse were missing, it didn't reduce the integrity of the therapy. At least that's how she explained it to me. Hope this helps!

[lucyjoy]

That may be an option to pursue. I don't think he cognitively remembers anything, but untreeted, it will likely surface during puberty. Also, with it being an orphange, it could be more then one person. Upon entering the country he had lesions his doctor suspected were due to abuse. Therapists seem to want to take the "wait till it surfaces" approach. From my own experience, I don't feel that's the best approach. Thanks for the suggestion.

[JuliannaTeresa]

My Daughter is 10 almost 11. She is also Deaf. I was told that because of her hearing impairment and inability to speak that she most likely and to expect that she was Sexually Abused either pre-Orphanage or while in the Orphanage.

I was accepting of her hearing impairment. Actually we share the impairment, but I did not want a Child who was in a Vegetative State and could not show emotion.

They had said at the Orphanage that Daughter was very responsive to being extremely Ticklish. I wondered how they factually could make this statement, so I started asking around about it.

What has worked with her is Play Therapy. With Play Therapy she is able to both express the emotion of how the Abuse felt as well as support with Anger Management Techniques.

She expresses the emotion of how the Abuse felt with both Barbie or regular dolls.

With the Anger Management she reads books with the Therapist of kids expressing their Anger.

The Female Therapist also uses wrestling as both Occupational as well as Play Therapy in expressing Anger.

Daughter has made a lot of progress since the Adoption.

I would also recommend someone who specializes in Pediatrics not Adult Therapy.

[lucyjoy]

Thanks. Play therapy might be a good idea. I've done so much with attachment therapy, I'd forgotten about using that. One of my first adopted children used play therapy with some success.

[louise]

with a supposed history of SA. Neither one of them has EVER showed any signs of abusing other kids either in our home or otherwise. The one area that worries me is their reluctance to discuss their own just emerging sexuality. We have a very open door kind of home and family when it comes to what we discuss, so I have had to find ways to include each of them when we have discussions with their brothers and sisters.

[rindava]

I have 3 kids all were SA victums.... My baby was away from it soon enough, not real acting out problems. Other two, not so lucky, and you never ever never can really know what goes on when you are in the bathroom, outside getting mail, and if they share rooms with any one.

Also, there are so many long term effects---- I think a lot of the kids grow up thinking that is all life is about and that is the only way to relate to others and thus sleep around or do anything with any one.... How to treat that???? Hopefully you can find a good therapist who will at least explore it, but the best we seem to be able to get here right now is every other week sessions and I know that does not do any one any good.

Things that have help::: de-sexualizing the environment-- no perverted comercials and no r-rates or even pg- rated moves. Plenty of activities where having sex with others is not important--- (One of my kids was forced to participate in group sex and she was in shock that when we went to church all those grown ups got together and didn't have sex and still had a good time)

If sexually acting out is not there, but it most likely happend, keep the lines of communication opened. Read the Courage to Heal hand book and see what you can apply to your situation----also I think the title of the book is Treatment of Sexualized CHildren by Eliana Gil and someone else. It is kid of depressing, but informative about the topic.

[lucyjoy]

I don't believe this child will perp on anyone, but we have safety systems because of the high risk children we have. I will read the suggested books and would like to know about others. We are veryopen about everything in our house and my kids do ask questions. I'm just really concerned about feelings that may come up later.

[Lilathe]

Since you just suspect that there might have been abuse but aren't sure if there was or wasn't, be very careful of the therapist and type of therapy involved.
You don't want some trauma implanted into the child's mind that may or may not have occurred.

If there was abuse, just because the caregivers were primarily female doesn't mean one of them is the perp. There are usually older children, maintenence men, groundskeepers, cooks, ministers etc that also have access to the children in group homes or orphanages.

The counseling for SA is basically the same whether you know the perp or not. The most important thing for the child is to not blame themselves and to regain a sense of them being in control of their own bodies.

Counseling to address the main issues can be done without even actually being specifically for SA itself. Counseling to help a child work through that the loss of control that might have occurred. Counseling to address issues of loss ie; the loss of feeling safe, protected etc. Counseling for self esteem issues. Teaching them that sometimes bad things happen to good people. That just because bad things have happened to him, that he isn't bad.

An adopted child could use all of the same interventions even if there was no SA. They have had many losses. They have had many people in control of their lives and they have had no say in it. They tend to blame themselves for anything bad that has happened to them.

[lucyjoy]

I don't think the therapy is the same. All the issue you listed are addressed with the attachment based therapy. Where there has been known sexually perps, the therapy was addressed to include feelings for those individuals as well as the wrongness on their part. I'll though I can't be sure of the abuse, my child had lesions surgically removed that were suspected to be caused by abuse. The care in the orphanage he came from was poor. He currantly has no cognitive memory of the orphanage at all. Having dealt with PTSD and sexual abuse, I have a concern that the feelings will arise before the memory comes back that will cause great trauma in adolescence.