TW: sexual assault of a child As children grow from innocent kids to smart teenagers and young adults, there’s often a lot of worry for parents about trust. Wondering if your son will come home before curfew without being called, or if your daughter is really going to a friend’s house and not sneaking to a party with drinking and drugs. Disappointment comes often as teens try to test the waters and see how far they can stretch, especially with social media influence and smartphone apps that make manipulation so much easier. Young adults want to be trusted, too. They want to be able to grow up and spend time with their friends while proving that their parents have raised a child worthy of their trust–and parents want to feel this pride, as well. There’s a lot of pressure and focus on kids and young adults proving that they can be trusted, but shouldn’t children be able to trust their parents, too? I mean, they are supposed to be the ultimate protector, and the ones who will come to their rescue when needed, right? Shouldn’t a child be able to feel safe with their lives in the hands of the adults who gave them life? Even if they make a mistake, shouldn’t parents be the safe haven to guide them in the right direction, so they learn how to be better decision-makers? Some of the actionable ways parents can build trust with their child include active listening, setting the right example as an adult (not having a “do as I say, not as I do” attitude), and mutual respect for your child. Sometimes this gets lots in the parent-child dynamic. That’s how it felt for me. There was so much focus on, “Do what I say exactly as I say it!” and “I’m the boss, you’re the kid” that I always focused on being the perfect child. I felt like a robot. There wasn’t any sort of mutual respect, I mean, they were the ones raising me and providing me with everything, so I needed to bow down while obeying everything they said at all times. They didn’t have to prove anything to me, no matter what sort of example was being given to me through verbal and physical abuse. And I learned early that I would never be able to trust my mother if things went wrong along the way, even as a victim. There was a situation where I was in danger as a child, having been taken behind bleachers by another student in camp, where a teacher stopped a sexual assault. Instead of helping me through it, I was blamed further, and ridiculed by the person I was supposed to trust the most–my mother. In this podcast, I’ll share the grim details, and how it affected me to the point of keeping many more secrets as a teen and in life in my early-20’s a result.
