This is a forum thread that I started more than two months ago. No one responded to my post until today. I would like to post my message here as well in hopes to get some feedback.
There are a lot of very bright and creative people on this site. I want to solicit ideas.
While journaling on the beach recently, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to honor my mother by finding a way to reach out to young victims of sexual assault. It is just the germ of an idea as yet, but the thread about spousal abuse and its effect on the children has sparked more thought.
I learned, only when my mother was 80 years old, that she had been raped at the age of 12. She told me the night after my father’s death when we were lying awake together and talking and I told her that both my sister and I had felt a great deal of loneliness growing up and that when my sister lost her virginity in date rape, she was too ashamed and isolated to tell anyone for many years. Wench mentioned that one in four women are victims of rape. I have previously heard one in three. In my family, it was two out of three.
I am beginning to see that the low self-esteem is often passed down from parent to child and may be evidenced by isolation and loneliness. My mother felt that she had put that event behind her and that it did not affect her parenting, but the one time after her initial confession that I brought the rape up to her, she said “Oh, I’ve been forgiven for that.” She went on to tell me that she was in her 50s before she realized that God could love her for who she was. She lived nearly her whole life feeling guilty and unworthy because she had been assaulted. If she felt unloved and unlovable, how could she have love for her children?
I was involved in a tutoring program for 2nd and 3rd graders a few years ago and was thrilled to see the progress and response of children to 30 minutes a day of one on one interaction. So many of those children were starved for attention. I think perhaps a program for contact with isolated children may be a way to build self-esteem. I see this as something of a mentoring program, but targeted toward the isolated and lonely – who may often be very gifted children, pouring social energy into academic achievement, trying in some area of their lives to be “enough” or even excellent.
Thoughts anyone? Would others get onboard? Are these needy children identifiable early in life?
I am looking for ideas on creating a program to identify those whose esteem has been damaged and a way to reach out and give them the value as people that has been taken from them. I am looking for ideas from anyone who has them -- no matter how those ideas were generated -- no matter the background of the person with the ideas.
And ultimately I would look for people willing to spend time reaching out to children in need of attention.
Please post any response to the forum thread Reaching Out to The Children to Equip the Adults
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