What Do Parents Need?

This article by Brandy Black appeared in the summer 2024 edition of NOTA NEWS, as a follow up to 5WAVES' appearance at the NOTA Conference the same year.

At the NOTA International Conference, I was asked a question that was surprisingly difficult to answer quickly: “What do parents need, after a disclosure of abusive sibling sexual behaviour?” The answer below is not comprehensive nor definitive. But it is a start, based on my own experience as a parent of sibling sexual trauma, as well as the hundreds of parents I have met since co-founding 5WAVES. 

First, something parents don’t need: We don’t need more blame or shame. Although this may seem obvious, it is a perception reported by many parents whose families have received social services after sibling sexual trauma. Parents don’t need explicit or implicit criticism of the way we have reacted so far. We pick up quickly on looks of surprise, a disapproving tone of voice, or insensitively chosen words. We are likely hyper-sensitive to blame, shame, and criticism, as we are feeling them already. This can easily turn into defensiveness and distrust of professionals, which becomes counterproductive to working together for the benefit of all children involved. 

Here are some things parents need from first responders and treatment providers:

• We need professionals to come to us with the assumption that we are competent, functional, loving parents, who are doing the best we can for all of our children, unless proven otherwise–not vice versa. 

• We need our children to be treated as children, as multifaceted individuals who are much more than the worst thing that has ever happened to them, or the worst thing they have ever done. 

• We need guidance on what our children need most from us and how we can support them. (This 5WAVES handout offers suggestions and can be printed and shared for free.) 

• We need accurate and honest information about system responses. We need to be told what is happening and why, accurate estimates of timelines, definitions of legal and social work jargon, what options and rights we have, and what resources are available for us.

• We need responders to remember that we are likely undergoing the greatest shock and trauma of our lives. Our actions and emotions are probably not typical of our usual personality. We may not remember information we are given, so we may need it repeated later, or provided both verbally and in writing.

• We need to know that we are not alone and that SST can happen in any family. 5WAVES’ online parents support group can be a big help here.

• We need to be respected throughout the process as sources of information on our children and on our cultural, economic, and larger family context. We need to be consulted and included in decision making. 

• When it comes to crucial decisions, we need the professionals who work directly with us and our children to have more of a say than those who have never met them.

Here are some things parents need which require systemic support and change:

• We need all our children to be able to receive help without delays and waitlists. Families affected by sibling sexual trauma have multiple children, each going through crucial developmental stages while healing and progress are stalled, resulting in prolonged and additional trauma and barriers to both individual and family healing.

• We need assistance in providing all of our children a safe place to live following disclosure. We need systems in place to house children who have caused harm and must move from their previous home; places where they can be held accountable but not shamed, where they can be safe themselves, and where they can have supportive contact with parents and other family members.

• We need immediate and ongoing mental health support for ourselves.

• We need a designated support person who we can ask questions and who can listen to us without judgement and help us navigate systems and decisions. Ideally, these would be trained, supported, and paid paraprofessionals with lived experience.

• We need the institutions tasked with investigating and responding to abusive sibling sexual behaviour to be given the resources, time, and flexibility necessary to respond to this complex type of child sexual trauma. 

As an intrafamilial trauma, with multiple children or young people who have caused harm and/or been harmed, harmful or abusive sibling sexual behaviour requires a much longer time for initial and ongoing assessment, more time to support all family members, and simply more services to provide and more systems to coordinate, compared to cases where one child has been sexually abused by an adult.  We need laws, options, protocols, and timelines that work for our children and our families, instead of adding obstacles and trauma to an already impossible situation. This will take both money and legal change. But failure to provide them will come at an even greater cost, to children, families, and society.