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CrossoverManiac
Guest
So, tone down the language a bit. The kids do need to know about the bad people that will touch them in a bad way.
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maryceleste
Guest
First of all, don’t you mean, “the bad people that might touch them in a bad way?” While abuse isn’t rare, neither is it a universal part of childhood, thank God.
Secondly, I don’t believe that the problem with these programs would be solved just by having the same style of lessons, with “toned down” language. They would still present small children with portrayals of sexuality in the context of situations that are “dirty” or “perverted.” If we knowingly and deliberately corrupt their innocence in this way, we’re doing them a certain evil, in the hopes of limiting a possible (but uncertain) evil in the future. (I say “limiting,” rather than “preventing,” because once a child realizes that he’s in a “bad touch” situation, some degree of abuse will have already happened.)
Before we go treading on such shaky moral ground, we’d better be very, very sure that there’s no other option. For instance, what’s wrong with Melissa’s approach? It seems fine to me. As a child growing up in the 70’s, I was well aware that adults shouldn’t do that sort of thing (“bad touching”), without having been presented with any deliberate, graphic scenarios.
The necessary instruction seems to consist of two basic topics:
- Teaching the children that they have “private parts.” Basic instruction in modesty should take care of this. As with all discussions of sexuality, this should be done in the home, not in the classroom. I doubt that today’s parents are so ill-prepared that they’re incapable of getting this simple message across, but, even if they were, the solution – from a Catholic perspective – would be to educate them, not their children.
- Along with teaching respect and love for authority figures, we need to make sure our children know that sometimes, even big people make mistakes, and do wrong things. The child needs to understand that he should tell a parent, or another trusted adult, if someone – ANYONE – says or does something that makes him feel “yucky” or “creepy.” Again, this is a simple enough concept. It can be taught with no offense to modesty… no need for special diagrams and vocabulary lessons… and no stories about “Little Timmy” and “Uncle Bob,” to warp young imaginations.
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Island_Oak
Guest
No…it wasn’t the fault of the VICTIMS. It was pedophile priests–who were tolerated, shuffled around, sent off for “treatment” stints and then reassigned, and a Church hierarchy that was more willing to have its children violated than to risk sullying its image or to face the ugliness of some human failings and deal with them head-on.
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otm
Guest
I don’t know about Fort Worth sweeping anything under the carpet, as I have not followed it. However, just as there is a responsiblity to the victims, and any possible future victims, there is also a responsiblity to the priest who may be accused, to make some ascertaition that there is substance to any charges brought. In addition, there are times where Canon Law may not permit the bishop to do certain things; that seems to be the gist of the case in Chicago where there were allegations against a priest and he was not removed immediately.
No, I don’t think that Vatican 2 was a scapegoat, or should be made a scapegoat. Often, implementation of change is gradual, due to study and response to issues which might not be seen by all, and be slowly implemented. Part of what happened because of Vatican 2 was that a lot of areas were “suddenly” brought into focus, and what had appeared to be glacial change suddenly took on the aspects of rapid change. Added to that were a lot of people with a lot of enthusiasm and not neceesarily as much common sense as would be wished; a few with agendas, a lot of confusion in the general population, coupled with a lot of rapid change in society (what has often been referred to as a cultural revolution).
What changed was a lot of public discussion and a lot of public musings by morla theologians, coupled with a backlash from Humanae Vitae that gave life to the belief that most moral theology was open to question; it was not far from there to the adoption from secular philosophy of situational ethics and from there to moral relativism. Many priests and bishops got caught up in the same sweep that the people in the pews were caught up with, namely, what was happening in secular society. Massive numbers of priests and nuns opted out of their vocations, and many who were left gave lip service to celibacy and ignored issues of chastity, either personally, or in their teaching of others.
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otm
Guest
Island Oak:
I am not passing judgement on the rightness or wrongness, not the justice or injustice, of asking a jury to award $35,000,000 to $50,000,000 or more to one vicitm. I am simply pointing out that the bankruptcy is brought on by the size of the claims.
I am in no way suggesting that the priests who abused are not the source of the bankruptcy, in that they abused. However, had the victims asked for $500,000 to $1,000,000 in damages, the Archdiocese of Portland more likely than not would not be in bankruptcy.
Don’t misread what I say. I am simply stating a fact: the victims have asked for multi million dollar settlements and have backed those with multi million dollar law suits.
I am not passing judgement on the rightness or wrongness, not the justice or injustice, of asking a jury to award $35,000,000 to $50,000,000 or more to one vicitm. I am simply pointing out that the bankruptcy is brought on by the size of the claims.
I am in no way suggesting that the priests who abused are not the source of the bankruptcy, in that they abused. However, had the victims asked for $500,000 to $1,000,000 in damages, the Archdiocese of Portland more likely than not would not be in bankruptcy.
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carol_marie
Guest
I’m glad they are asking for all that money. It seems that’s the only way the Bishops are going to get it together & realize they can’t just shuffle the offenders to another church with someone “keeping an eye on them” - and hope it all goes away. Sadly, it’s not until someone is forced to cough up the big bucks that anything changes. Look at the most recent case in Chicago - the Priest accused had a history of reports against him & he was given a promotion right before he was arrested. I’m begining to think that it’s never going to stop until they are hit where it hurts… in the wallet.
Sadly, it’s come down to this… we have to teach sweet innocent little children that they have to be on guard against perverts who want to touch them… which I don’t think does much good. Perverts are so cunning - they develop a realtionship with their victims so that even if the child knows it’s wrong - they don’t want to get anyone in trouble - and they are full of shame so they keep their mouth shut. I’m not against the education - I just don’t think it will solve the problem.
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Island_Oak
Guest
I DO see what you are saying and share your heartbreak at the cost of all this to the Church–both monetarily and in other intangible ways. But it’s disingenuous to concede on one hand that someone’s life has been ruined, and then insist the victim should be conservative in seeking compensation or decline to the opportunity to send a message (via punitive damages) to those who had the authority to prevent the abuse from becoming as widespread as it was. When you willingly and recklessly disregard the risk of harming someone or lack the courage to stop harm you know is occuring, you also accept the risk of the consequences that flow from the damage that you caused, or through your omission, allowed.
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CrossoverManiac
Guest
Island Oak:
The pedophile priests had a lot of help from some of the bishops. We’re always going to have perverts trying to get into the priesthoods and, like wolves in sheep clothing, pose as good men. But the bishops, by covering up their terrible deeds, facilitated them in their actions. Had the bishops done the right thing, there would have been no grounds to blame the Church hierarchy, and that’s the real scandal. It’s not the pedo priests, it was the men at the top who knew about it and did nothing but try to cover up the evil. And the cover-up tends to be worse than the cry being covered up.
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Melissa
Guest
No, toning down the language isn’t going to help. This sort of education just does not belong in a classroom setting for children–it’d be totally different (and I’d have no problem with it) if it were a class for parents. Preventing abuse is not the job of the child (but these ‘good touch/bad touch’ programs make it the child’s job), it is the job of the parents or other adults who have been entrusted with the child’s care (long or short term).
We’re not going to help matters by victimizing the children first (and presenting graphic or vague-and-scary scenarios is going to do just that).
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the-3rd-parent
Guest
This is ridiculas. Kids don’t need to hear the word Vagina and penis. They know what their private parts are. All you need to do to clarify is to say that its the parts we keep covered. You don’t need to treat the child like an idiot by explaining to them what a child of the opposite sex has under their clothing. They have no need of knowing that information.
I do remember being very young and watching a Winnie the Pooh special on not letting adults touch your private parts. It went along with understanding what a stanger was and to not go into a stranger’s car. That was enough information.
The only confusion you’ll get with this is with kids who still need help whipping themselves in the bathroom. If they’re that young, they migh bring that up if you keep prying them for “Were you molested?” I was about 4 or 5 when I watched the show and unforunately my grandma started suspecting that my Dad had molested me all because I was innocent and was trying to clarify whether or not she was telling me if it were wrong for my dad to help me whip after using the toilet. It hurt my father’s feelings severely.
I do remember being very young and watching a Winnie the Pooh special on not letting adults touch your private parts. It went along with understanding what a stanger was and to not go into a stranger’s car. That was enough information.
The only confusion you’ll get with this is with kids who still need help whipping themselves in the bathroom. If they’re that young, they migh bring that up if you keep prying them for “Were you molested?” I was about 4 or 5 when I watched the show and unforunately my grandma started suspecting that my Dad had molested me all because I was innocent and was trying to clarify whether or not she was telling me if it were wrong for my dad to help me whip after using the toilet. It hurt my father’s feelings severely.
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Liberalsaved
Guest
Sexual abuse is more prevalent among people the child knows. So teaching them to be wary of strangers is not enough.
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the-3rd-parent
Guest
Information doesn’t always protect you. Even though I had seen these Winnie the Pooh things, it did not stop me from being victimized when I was much older. Saying no and being rude about it doesn’t necessarily stop it from happening, and I would say that in my case, forgiveness was the only answer.
You see, when an adult victimizes a child, that child often imitates that behavior on other children. (to be a little more clear. I was the victim of another child who was imtitating his inappropriate sexual experiences on me) You can also see children imitating sexual behavior on each other when their parents have allowed them in contact with sexual content on TV or are not descreet enough with their sexual acts with each other.
Children need to be protected the entire way around. Let’s not rationalizing violating them to a lesser degree in order to protect them from being violated to a larger degree. Let’s protect them from being violated at all.
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the-3rd-parent
Guest
You misinterprited. The program was able to cover the sexual abuse stuff in a very short amount of time. It did mention that it could be your neighbor or even your parent. Then it went onto a different tangent about strangers. In fact, I think the stranger thing was a completely different program that went along with the whole set. I remember it like a video, but that doesn’t make since because I don’t think my grandma had a VHS player back then. But I remember being put in front of both programs more than once.
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Corki
Guest
I couldn’t agree more. I am sick of hearing all of the well meaning parents/educators who insist that we have to teach young children the clinical names for their body parts. All this does is to erode the child’s natural sense of modesty. (Side rant: according to Church teaching, this is tantamount to child abuse). To do so in the presence of other people makes the matter worse. At a very young age, it doesn’t even matter if the genders are separated. Kids don’t like to talk about “private” things in front of their peers. At a slightly younger age, mixing the genders is, of course, even worse.
And of course the cruelest part of this is that by doing so you have done nothing to protect the child. So you have abused the child by erroding his/her modesty prematurely and done nothing to protect him/her. No way. Not with my kids. Not in my class. Not if I can help it to anyone else’s kids either.
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