Your Children Should Avoid “1-on-1” Situations

Gloria Morris, Executive Director of The Parenting Place, said if she could deliver one message to parents and adults trying to prevent child abuse, it would be this:

“No 1-on-1s,” Morris said. “Please, please please train your children and your grandchildren on no 1-on-1s.”

"If we can train our child, that even though I know Mr. Smith really well, if he offers me a ride home, I can't take it unless his daughter is going to be in the car the whole time, and I would never be in a 1-on-1," she continued. "If I was going to drive my son's friend home, my son better be in the car.

“If we were trained as teachers that if I wanted to have somebody go get supplies, it wasn't one child who helped me get supplies or get something from the cafeteria, it was always two or three children.

“You're training the children, but you're also protecting yourself,” she said. “Teaching children not to be in 1-on-1 situations.”

Morris spoke to representatives of agencies and organizations dedicated to helping children. The groups met at a recent Mandatory Reporting training held by the Children's Service Council of Pickens County.

“One of our biggest problems is sleepovers?” Morris said. “How well do we really know the families? A lot of things happen at sleepovers. How well do we really know these folks? We've had a lot of things happen at church retreats.

She cautioned people to make sure their church has procedures regarding children and keeping them safe.

“If you're at a church and you've got kids sleeping over, you've got to have every procedure down,” Morris said. “If a child has to go to the bathroom, what's the procedure for that?”

Sometimes the abuser is another child.

“There's a lot of things that happen in school bathrooms,” Morris said. “We have to be vigilant. We can't forget about how much child-on-child things go on too. That child needs help, the one doing the perpetration and also, of course, the victim. How do they know about these sexual activities so early on in life? It's something that happened to them.”

Attendees watched a video on child abuse, which including convicted child abusers talking about how they were able to establish contact with children, often under their parents' noses, and victims speaking about the abuse.

“This is actual victims telling their stories,” said Morris. “Only 1 out of 3 victims tell their stories.”

Morris said she hoped the video and the testimonies on it would help attendees with their work.

“How do we get at the root and how do we heal that pain from all that?” she asked. “Those of us who work with victims know, sometimes it takes quite a while of building a relationship before we get at what's really going on with folks. Too often, we dismiss them too early, and they need to stay in our programs longer.”

She asked attendees what they'd noticed about the pedophiles interviewed in the video.

“Kid-friendly,” “Sharing the kids' interests,” “They try to become what the child needs at that moment” and “They look like everybody else” were among the answers.

“It's not like they've got a sign on them that says 'Here I am',” Morris said. “They groom their victims. They're very manipulative – and they're very smart. They can wait a long time saying hi to you everyday, giving you a candy bar the next day, seeing you're alone today, 'Can I put my arm around you?' We notice there's a lot of touchy-feely behavior with a lot of our pedophiles.

“They're looking for that kid on the playground sitting off by themselves, because they might not have parents that are so vigilant,” she continued. “Looking for that child who's always picked up last. That child's alone. 'I'll wait with you.' That's a perfect opportunity.”