Conversations with a 10 year old

Anthony is working studiously on his badges for Cub Scouts (Webelos actually) and is about to “Cross the Arrow of Light” into Boy Scouts. It’s a great tradition and something that we are all very proud of. Brad was a scout and so were many of Anthony’s grandparents.

Brad and Anthony were working on a scout badge the other night that revolved around personal safety. The pamphlet that they were working from is titled “How to Protect your Children from Child Abuse: A Parents Guide.” It truly is a great pamphlet that highlighted how to have conversations with your scout about appropriate relationships with adults and what child abuse is. In theory, I support awareness in hopes of prevention but I’ll admit it was very difficult to have these conversations with Anthony. In order to explain to him how to prevent child abuse in its various forms, including sexual, we had to explain to him what it is in the first place. He has never really had any reason to contemplate abuse in any form other than being upset at us for grounding him or a swat on the butt when he was younger.

Watching his face was a slow motion caption of heart break for me. He listened, then absorbed what we were saying, what cruelties could happen in the world to children at the hands of trusted adults. You could almost watch his mind come up with ‘real life’ scenarios for each of the atrocities he was learning about. It was painful.

I wanted to stop so bad and let him go on in his naive way, not knowing about the big bad world, thinking we, his parents and close family, could protect him from ever knowing these horrible things. I knew though, that, God forbid, he were ever exposed to any form of abuse, knowledge would be his power. By sheltering him from the very idea of child abuse I was making him that much more vulnerable. It haunted me though. I could see his wheels spinning and so badly wanted to see his visions, swear to him that I would never ever in a million years let them happen to him. Hug him tight and reassure him that these were just terrible things that happened to other people never ever to him but that’s not the way the world works and all I could do was remain calm, talk openly, objectively and at his level. We did our best to reassure him of his safety and inform him that his knowledge was his power. At the very end, before he bound off to go play legos, relatively unchanged by his passing thoughts, I did hug him, hard. I tried to convey every motherly protection mantra I was thinking into my hug. I’m sure, in his 10 year old mind he just though I was being mushy, but I slept a little better knowing I hugged him with everything I had after such a difficult conversation.