So a few years ago, my mom's over at our house for a family event. And she's in the back with my oldest son Grady, who was five at the time. She comes walking into the kitchen laughing and shaking her head.
I said, what happened? She said, only your kid. Grady kicked me out of the bathroom. I said, why? He said, Nana, I have to potty.
Get out. You can't see my penis. Now, I hope by the end of this talk that our faces stop turning as red as this dot that I'm standing on.
Whenever I say the words penis and vagina. You see, I'm a counselor trained in trauma and sex addiction, but I'm also a sexual trauma survivor. So this is not the first time that my mom and I have had this uncomfortable parenting conversation.
So she looked at me and she said, why do you say that? I wasn't doing anything. I was just doing my hair. I wasn't even looking.
I would never harm him. I said, I know, mom, but he knows his boundaries and how to set them. You might be safe, but I want him to know what to do when he's not safe and to feel confident.
My wife and I and I have two boys, so we have what's called the penis rules at our house. They know who can touch them, who can see them naked, and when and where this is appropriate. I did not learn these lessons when I grew up, and years of heartache followed. I believe that a child who does not learn these rules is unintentionally neglected.
Tonight, I want you to learn this word, sexual neglect. Now, when you hear sexual neglect, you may think it means a child's not getting enough sexual engagement, but I mean quite the opposite. My definition for childhood sexual neglect is a child that grows up without age-appropriate and healthy conversations about sexual development, private parts, consent, and body safety.
Now, our world doesn't feel comfortable talking about these things, but we've got to get used to it. The ACEs study give us five traumatic events that happen to children that can stay with them the rest of their life. Physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Physical and emotional neglect.
What's not listed is sexual neglect. I believe that this is something we need to address communally and immediately. Now let me put you in context. Remember when you were a kid, or maybe you're a parent now, and you taught your kids how to cross the street?
You'd say, grab my hand, look both ways, watch for cars, stay on the sidewalk. We did that to give them boundaries, to set expectations to keep them safe. It's like we live in a world where we're allowing children to walk out on the street and be hit by cars. cars that they don't even know exist. A child's first experience with masturbation, menstruation, or any other normal sexual development should not be paired with shame, fear, and surprise.
This can lead to a life of addiction, mental health issues, and an unhealthy view of themselves. and others. A child that grows up sexually neglected has a hard time protecting themselves from people online or in person. They feel uncomfortable with their own bodies and with others, and they're less likely to report to you if something happens. to them.
Research shows that one out of three girls and one out of five boys experience sexual trauma by 18. Half of these cases is child-on-child interactions due to sexual neglect. 92% of sexual trauma happens by someone we know at a campout, at a sleepover. We've got to do better.
In recent years, as we've immersed children closer, more and more online with technology, devices, and social media, abuses move from in-person to online. There's groups of adults and teenagers creating worlds of sexual exploitation and exposing our children to adult content, all while they watch YouTube kids play Roblox and Minecraft. The average age for a child to see pornography is 8 to 11 years old.
There are middle schoolers sending nude pictures back and forth and airdropping pictures to people at events and even uploading sex. sexual content to social media. Why is this?
Because less than 15% of parents have any rules for devices. Because we did not grow up in the digital age. We are analog to digital converts.
These children are digital natives and we have to get to know them. I believe that now is the time to bring awareness, tools and resources to our families and our children. I believe that sexual neglect is one of the number one causes to many of the issues that we deal with.
and young adults today, but I think we can stop it with a few steps. The first one is what we're doing right now. Having a somewhat difficult and uncomfortable conversation.
We have to bring awareness to the issue. Now, why am I talking about this? Because I myself was a sexual survivor.
I felt so many years of shame and neglect and heartache. I felt so alone. But I knew that I could do something about it by using my expertise and my experience. By the grace of God and a lot of therapy, right, I find healing.
And I've talked to hundreds of people too ashamed to tell their stories. So I use mine to share with you today. So I'm going to put you in context. I'm going to ask you to be brave today.
I'm going to ask you to raise your hand if your parents talk to you about masturbation. Raise your hand if your parent talks to you about menstruation. Raise your hand if your parent uses the term penis and vagina to describe their private parts. Everywhere I go, very few people can raise their hand. It seems like many of us have been sexually neglected.
Now, I want to be clear, I didn't raise my hand either. And this is not a condemnation of our parents or their parents. They didn't have the resources.
or tools. They didn't have podcasts. They didn't have books to do this work. But we do, and we can make a difference. It breaks my heart that generation after generation, this cycle has continued, but we can stop the cycle in two ways.
Prevention or recovery. If you're a person listening to this and for the first time you realize that you've experienced sexual neglect or maybe you've experienced sexual trauma and never told anybody, hope is here. Hope is now. Recovery is possible. If you're a parent or a caregiver or a guardian and you want to protect your child online or in person, there are books and resources like never before.
And you can get them and use them. So what can we do? There's four things you can do. You can start by listening to one of those podcasts or reading those books.
There are tons of resources that our parents didn't have that we can get access to. I've listed a lot of them on our podcast, on our website. You can book a speaker to come out and talk with your community, your mosque, your synagogue. your church, and educate you in your context with the hows and the whys and the whats.
You can start therapy for yourself and recover from your own trauma that you didn't know that you've experienced or that you haven't told anyone. So you can find freedom. and have hard conversations with your children. And lastly, you can start those hard conversations. You can build a bridge between you and your child where they feel comfortable putting heavy things on there, where they can come to you for direction and guidance over time, and they know they can trust you.
My dream is that in the not so distant future, there's a large group of adults, families, and children who feel comfortable about their sexuality, who see themselves in a healthy light, and who feel confident in protecting them. themselves online or in person. This talk is for anyone out there who's experienced these things and is living in shame.
You are the light in the darkness. Shine bright. Thank you.