Parenting Tips - Behavioral Signs That A Child Has Been Molested

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A child can have a variety of behavioral signs after they've been abused.

With younger child, often times, you are looking for detailed and age inappropriate sexual behaviors. So, if they have not been exposed to a particular type of sexual behavior, and they are displaying that, you want to be more concerned. Because, where would they learn that sexual behavior?

Now, for instance, if they've seen mom and dad having some intimate relations, or they've been exposed to something on TV that had a sexual nature to it, or some pornography, or something they saw in the magazine, they may imitate that. However, if they really never had exposure to those sexual matters, then you're going to be more concerned if your child is displaying those types of behaviors. In addition, younger children may also have this fascination with sexual matters. And, fascination with the genital area. That's going to raise a red flag. Also, they may have sort of behavioral issues of being more clingy, starting to wet the bed at night again, or soiling the underwear.

A lot of these different aggressive behaviors are telling you that something is not right. They are just not doing okay.

With older children and adolescent you will often see, again, drastic changes in behaviors. So, it's not whether it's a positive behavior or a negative behavior. It's drastic changes.

They, again, may be on the negative side where they become more truant. They become more aggressive. They start having poor school performance. They start having difficulties with parent relations. Or they may be on what could be perceived as kind of a positive side, in that they become more hyper-vigilant. And, they want to be the perfect child. They want to become the straight A student, and clean the house, and take care of everything. Because, they've been in a situation that they are completely out of control. But now, they want to control that environment around them. So, sometimes you'll see the negative behaviors, sometimes you'll see the positive behaviors.

Also with older children and adolescents, you will sometimes see taking on more high risk behaviors. Such as drug abuse, alcohol abuse, sexual promiscuity. Also self injuries types of behaviors. They may run away. And then also, the extreme, they may attempt suicide or actually succeed in suiciding.