What’s the One Thing We Don’t Teach Our Children in School?

When you were a kid in school, you learned exactly what to do if there was a fire, a tornado, a lockdown. You learned to say “no” to drugs and to get away from gangs and strangers but did you ever once hear what you should do if you were being sexually abused?

April is National Sexual Assault Awareness Month in the United States. To help raise awareness of this issue, Erin Merryn has made it her life’s work to help kids end their silence and speak up about being sexually abused.

Merryn is herself a survivor of abuse from the ages of 6 to 8 1/2 by an adult male and from 11 to 13 by a male cousin. She broke her silence in 1998 at the age of 13 in a Children’s Advocacy Center in Illinois. Back then, there were only 139 centers across the country. Today, there are 700 such centers. The alternative before CACs was the police station – not a very welcoming place for a frightened child.

Merryn’s slogan is “How to Get Away, How to Tell Today” for children who need to break the silence and end the cycle. She is advocating a national law called “Erin’s Law” that mandates age-appropriate education in all schools about how children can get away from sexual predators and start healing from their abuse.

Erin’s Law was signed into law in February by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, after it received unanimous approval in both the House and Senate.  Up until this new law, the only law on the books in Illinois that came close was a mandate that all high school sophomores learn about this. Merryn says that is way too late for kids, most of whom were abuse at a much younger age.

Merryn says several other governing bodies are considering this law including Iowa’s Senate and Missouri’s Senate. A bill is being drafted in Massachusetts and also a lawmaker in Pennsylvania has agreed to sponsor it there.  But Merryn ultimately wants this law active on a national level.

She told Family First she has written a letter to President Obama asking for his support and pointing out that within ½ a mile of the White House, there are 19 registered sex offenders. That’s ½ mile of where Sasha and Malia sleep but they, she points out, are protected 24/7 by the Secret Service. Most kids in DC or across the country aren’t being guarded each night.

She says we have sex education program (always a disputed topic) but a very small number of sexual abuse programs. She says she knows of one that discusses “good touching” and “bad touching” but as an abuse survivor, she says those terms are very confusing for a child.

She advocates the terms “safe touch” and “unsafe touch” because that is a much clearer distinction. When you bring associations of “good” and “bad” around sexual experiences, then when the child becomes an adult, overcoming this programming once they are in a romantic relationship can be very, very difficult, she says.

Merryn says the programs are so important because many parents believe they live in “safe” neighborhoods and their kids go to “good” schools, so it certainly couldn’t happen in their family. Merryn points out, however, that 93% of abuse victims knew their perpetrator. That means, while we are so vigilant to protect our children from strangers at the bus stop or when walking home, the chances are much higher it could happen closer to home.

Through Erin’s Law, Merryn hopes that children can learn to speak after one incident instead of enduring a lifetime of abuse and hurt. Many predators groom their victims into submission and then threaten them once the abuse has begun. She says children are told they will be killed or their family destroyed or their moms will lose their homes if they tell. In the program being developed, she hopes to arm children when the knowledge that the law is on their side and that speaking out will save them, rather than hurt them.

Learn more about Merryn’s work and her books Stolen Innocence and Living for Today, as well as watch several videos and learn about her accolades at www.erinmerryn.net. You will be very impressed by this young woman and her incredible determination, dedication and faith.

For tips on how parents can help keep their kids safer from a predator, please read this past article with tips from attorney Jill Starishevsky, author of “My Body Belongs to Me.”