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The Sexually Reactive Child

             Seven-year-old Jarrod has been touching his younger foster sister inappropriately.
             Nine-year-old Melissa undresses younger playmates on the school ground and mimics sexual acts.
             Eleven-year-old Aaron was caught masturbating a classmate of the same age and sex in the boys" bathroom at school.
             The above children all have one similarity: They are sexually reactive children. In other words, they act out in sexual ways because they themselves have been abused sexually in the past. It is behavior that is learned.
             The Awareness Center, an organization located in Baltimore, Maryland that aims to prevent and address child sexual abuse, reports that 25 to 40% of all alleged sexual abuse involves young perpetrators.
             A 2001 study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed that many sexual crimes against children and adults (but mostly younger children) are committed by juveniles aged between 12-18; during 1999, juveniles accounted for 16% of all violent crimes in the U.S. and 17% of total arrests for forcible rape.
             Dr. Phil Rich, MSW, writes in Self-Help Magazine that 7-15% of juveniles treated for sexually abusive behavior will commit a further offense at some later point.
             Sexually reactive children communicate to others in ways that are sexual because the behavior is familiar to them. They may have watched or engaged in sexual activity. Although sexual abuse is a terrible act against a person, sometimes young victims can't understand the dynamics or realize the impact it is having on their lives. Not all perpetrators behave in a violent way with their young victims, and when or if a child has derived pleasure from the sexual act, it's even more perplexing for them to understand the nature of sexual abuse.
             Without identification, professional help, and education, these children can mature to be juvenile and adult sexual offenders. Some children are "erotisized" without becoming offenders themselves, so we should be cautious to avoid classifying all sexually reactive children as perpetrators.


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