If parents think their child may have been sexually abused, they should talk with their child, but limit their questions, said a local child psychologist.
“The concern would be the parent’s response might, in fact, trigger a response in the child, making them even more anxious,” said Dr. Joseph Zingaro. “I really recommend parents let the professionals handle it, for the child’s sake as well as theirs.”
Zingaro, a psychologist licensed in Delaware since 1987, works with People’s Place, a nonprofit outpatient mental health clinic based in Milford. He said teenagers are mature enough to be questioned directly, but children need to be handled delicately.
“Young children don’t always know sexual abuse per se,” he said. “They’ll describe it as something hurting, or feeling uncomfortable. If a child is less than 2, he won’t even have the language to process what’s going on.”
Aggressive questioning could make a child feel accused or guilty, said Zingaro. If parents believe their child has been sexually abused, he said they should contact state police. Repeated interrogation could cause children to clam up during later interviews.
If the recent arrest of Dr. Earl Bradley makes a child anxious about visiting his or her physician, Zingaro said the best thing a parent could do is stay with the child during the entire visit.
“What Bradley did was he separated the parents from the children,” Zingaro said. “Parents should tell their children, ‘I will stay in the room; this will not happen to you.’”
In addition to providing comfort, Zingaro said it will help children trust their physician.
“It sends a message: ‘I will be there with you, and this is not what our doctor does,’” he said.
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