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Welcome to the Therapy for a Black Girls Podcasts, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr joy hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. To get more information, visit the website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. And while I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for session ninety of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. I mentioned last week that we'd be spending some time here on the podcast diving into the larger conversations that got started by the Surviving R. Kelly docuseries. Since we last chatted, I've made a YouTube video about ways you can take care of yourself if you found yourself triggered by either the docuseries or the conversation surrounding it. And I also appeared on the NPR news show One A to discuss how black women have been impacted by the docuseries and some of the factors that have allowed this type of behavior to continue in our community. What is it about hearing these stories that is the most affecting. I think the level of details that were shared impacted people, But I also think I have seen a lot of conversation from women thinking back about relationships they may have had with older men when they were younger, and not necessarily recognizing that as maybe an abusive situation then, but now being able to reflect back in thinking that really was not a good situation. So I think it has caused people to rethink some relationships they've had in their lives in a different spectrum. I'll be sure to link both of these in the show notes so that you can check them out if you're interested. And today we want to address another piece of this conversation, and that is helping parents to be more aware of what they should know about how perpetrators of child sexual abuse continue to victimize children. For this conversation, I was joined by Spirit, who you might remember from our episode on shedding the Superwoman's status. Spirit is the owner and clinical director of the Atlanta based mental health group practice T T S Enterprises. Spirits professional distinctions include Board certified, National Certified, counselor, Licensed professional counselor, Certified forensic Mental health evaluator, Certified parenting Coordinator, ordained marriage Officiate, and child sexual Abuse Prevention facilitator. Spirit has been a recognizable face in the mental health and wellness space since two thousand and three, with multiple appearances online, national television, syndicated radio, in print, including Ebony Magazine, Dr Phil and The Steve Harvey Show. In this conversation, Spirit and I chatted about some of the tactics used by perpetrators to prey on children, what we mean when we talk about the grooming process, how we can talk with our kids about boundaries and consent related to their bodies, and the best ways to respond to your child if they share that they've been violated again. We're hoping to continue this incredibly important conversation and would love to hear your thoughts about the episode, so please share them with us on social media as you're listening, using the hashtag tb G in Session. Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for coming back to join us, Spirit. I'm very excited to have you for this conversation. You know, you and I and much of the country at least Black America and specific bent much of the last weekend watching the Surviving R. Kelly series, And so I know that you have tons of experience with so many things, but in particular being a child sexual abuse prevention facilitator for the last several years. So I want to start just kind of hearing what were some of the most glaring takeaways you had after watching the series. Oh my goodness, I don't even know where to start with that, right, I mean, it was so overwhelming, But I guess for me, especially in doing this kind of work, the most important thing that I wanted people to realize is one that sexual abuse is a very real thing, that it not only affects the individual who was being abused, but also the entire family, That it doesn't just last in that instance, but over a person's lifetime. And most importantly, what I really want people to take away from this that they probably didn't take away from it in watching the docuseries is that this is not just the boogeyman down the hall or down the street. This is in your home, This is in your church, this is in your child school. They are people that you know, and I think that that is what's most important because in the same way that we're watching this series and going, oh, my gosh, I can't believe this has happened. I've heard an equal number of people go, well, where were those parents? Well, seeing would never happen in my house, because there's no way that a stranger or a celebrity would come in and be a predator to my child. But what they really need to know is that most children know who their abusers are, and they are people that they loved right right. Yes, I did see a lot of you know, like, well, it couldn't be me, and I would do such and such. And of course we all like to like think about what we would do in a situation, but often missed like what happened in reality and some of the things we may be missing in our own lives and our own children's lives that may be kind of giving way to some of this. Yeah, and you know, and the other part of that, really too, is the number of people that were triggered in watching this, you know. And I don't know as a clinician if you're having that same experience, but all last week, I mean, after each night of the docuseries, I had not just women, but men coming to me too, going, oh my gosh, I don't know why I'm so upset. This has reminded me of what happened to me when I was a kid, and I don't understand why I'm connecting with it, or this happened to a cousin or to a family member. I don't know why this is upsetting me, or just even the takeaway of why isn't everybody talking about this with the same amount of passion? What does that mean that only a certain group of people are talking about this? Does this mean that women don't matter? Does this mean that black women don't matter? Does this mean that black girls or brown girls don't matter? What do we do with this? In the aftermath of all of this that we've watched, right, And that's why I'm glad you were able to join us, because I do think you know, a lot of people were left feeling very heavy. Um. I haven't necessarily had an individual clients impacted, but in the Facebook community that I moderate, there has been a lot of conversation about it, and like you said, a lot of people have been left triggered and just feeling kind of hopeless and where do we go and what do we do with all of this energy that it feels like it's now out there. So I'm hoping that this can be a part of it, right and having some conversations about how we can recognize some of these things and you know, move to help keep our kids safe for sure. So something that you touched on a little bit earlier, Spirit was that you know, when sexual abuse happens to us, how it not only impacts that child, but the family and the community and lots of different ways. And some of the conversation that I saw around the docuseries was related to our Kelly himself maybe having a history of being sexually abused and how that maybe has impacted the decisions that have come out later. Um. And so I feel a little weird about that because I know, um, the research doesn't necessarily support that people who are abused become abuses themselves, though I know there can be some connection. Can you talk a little bit about that. Actually, you would be surprised to know how often that does happen. And so when we talk about the psycho sexual histories of predators, there often is some abuse there in the past. But I also think that it's important that we talk about that from UH as we go forward, because individuals who have dealt with sexual molestation as children are more likely to have histories as they get older that involve domestic violence, that involves sex trafficking, that involves sex work. Because they are objectified and exploited at such a young age, how they see themselves, their value, their own bodies not belonging to them, that has lifelong impacts. Right, And so when we look at somebody like R. Kelly who says, from the age of seven to thirteen he alleges that he was molested, that creates a very distorted idea about sex, about sexuality, about my personal power and control and my need to reclaim that power and control. It can become very distorted. And so in the mind of a victim, who they then go on to become as a perpetrator, can be sometimes even worse. And it is I see it many times in therapy. It does not necessarily look like a perpetrator like R. Kelly. But what I will see is individuals who say, I was molested as a child, and I can't even bring myself to admit or deal with the fact that I went on to touch other children, that I sexually experimented with a cousin or with a sibling, or that I, as a babysitter touched other children. It is far more common than we talk about, and far more common than we realize. Joy. Okay, So getting back to the point that you made about, um, you know people talking about, Oh, it couldn't be me, this couldn't be in my house. What are some of the things that maybe we saw in the docuseries, But broadening out right, because that's just a starting place for the conversation. We're really wanting to talk about what's going on in our own homes and our own communities. What are some of the kind of signs and things that we're going on that we do need to be paying attention to in our own houses. Okay. So one of the things that people missed, or that it was kind of hinted on but never really talked about, was the profile of who do I choose when I'm going to abuse somebody? Right? And so you looked at these women and especially as children, and I know that this doesn't sound too pleasant. It actually sounds almost as though it's an insult, but it's really not. What we hear is that individuals who are often picked out who are growned to be molested. They are individuals who may not necessarily completely understand what's going on, either because they lack the maturity or the exposure to understand that they're being abused or that they're being singled out. We're looking at individuals who sometimes whose families don't necessarily have resources in terms of financial resources, or legal resources, or even social support to seek help. And so what happens is an individual in order for him to molest, or in order for her to molest an individual, she has to have the exposure. So what we're looking at is somebody who has access to a potential victim. And that means that I have to be a family member, I have to be a neighbor, I have to be a teacher or a minister, someone who has access to the thing that I am trying to molest. And you mentioned the word grooming, and we heard that a lot in the Donci series. Can you say more about what that is. Grooming means that I have to not only prepare you as my victim to become comfortable with what it is that I'm going to do, but I have to groom the entire family I to groom everyone around me, and so grooming is a very intentional behavior that basically says, I am working hard to get you to like me and to trust me, so that I would seem as though I'm above reproach. You would never expect that I would do a thing like that, and in actuality, you come to trust me more than you trust anybody else. So perhaps I'm the person who just seems like I'm just so good with kids. I adore children with the victim, I may spend a lot of time with the victim, taking care of them, feeding them, buying them gifts, spending quality time with them. I may become their most trusted adult or older youth ally, and so because of that, nobody ever suspects that I would be the individual that is actually taken advantage of this child. And as it relates to adults, I have to groom you to make you believe that something like that wouldn't even be possible. So if anybody, even the victim themselves, were to come to you and say this is what Uncle Ralph did to me, or this is what the babysitter is doing to me, you wouldn't believe it because you would be in such denial because of the relationship that I, as the predator, have built with you that you could just not fathom that something like that would be true. Surely the child must be mistaken. Surely they must be making something up. Surely they must have imagined it, or they misunderstood what I was doing. And I will actually be able to manipulate you most of the time to believe me and not the victim, because you really don't want to admit to yourself that you could have a predator standing in front of you. Mm mmmmmm yeah. And I think what was glaring for me and watching the docuseries is how much and how often people would describe him as charming, right, And how often do we hear that in our office is when somebody has been assaulted, that they describe the predator as charming and right, the part of the whole grooming process, right, so that you are going is down and they come across very captivating, very charming, so that they do kind of get you to believe them, right. And so when we talk about that, I mean, and if you really want to think about it in terms of statistics, right, what we know is that children who are sexually abused know their abuser of them are usually abused by family members. Roughly six are abused by people that the family trusts. So again we're talking about school folks, church folks, sports folks, um, they are in positions of trust within the family. Then another forty percent are abused by older or larger youth like babysitters or cousins or the next door neighbor. And so when you think about those numbers, that means that only ten are abused by strangers. And that is usually the group that we spend most of the time telling our children to avoid. The don't talk to strangers, don't get in the car with a stranger, don't go somewhere with someone that you don't know. But we never talk about what to do when that predator is someone that they do know. So how can we be more visionless? Fear like if these are people that will likely be around our children, Like, what kinds of things do we need to be paying attention to, um to to trying to avoid some of this? Okay, So first and foremost, what we want people to recognize is that more than eighty percent, eighty percent of sexual abuse incidents happen when children are isolated in one on one situations. So what does that mean. That means never ever ever allow your child or your children to be alone. So that means that we need to be choosing group situations where there are multiple not just one, but multiple adults supervising children. So if that's in a daycare setting and you know that early in the morning or late in the afternoon there is a multiple children in a play and there are multiple staff members, then that is great. But if you're dropping your child off or you're picking your child up and your child is the only one there and there's only one provider there, that may not necessarily be the safest environment. If you have one on one music lessons and you can't see your child during those lessons, then that may not necessarily be the greatest environment. We call these places hot spots, right. Hot spots are places that are hidden areas in physical environments where children have the potential to be isolated in one on one situations with older children or adults, and we want to avoid those circumstances. So, for example, Joy, even in my office, my office is made almost entirely of glass, and when we are working with children in our office. Although we want to maintain the visual or the the audio privacy for children, we don't want people to overhear the conversations. We make sure that children can always be seen at all times with other adults present. We want to make sure that children don't go into bathrooms by themselves, or in bathrooms with older children and there are no adults around that are supervising. We want to make sure that when we're having Sunday school lessons, if there's not a lot of children who are present, and there's only one teacher there and there's only one child there, then perhaps we're combining classes because we're not doing one on one. Isolation is always to be avoided. We also want to talk about things like background checks, in person interviews for people that we don't know, having disclosure and discovery policies for child sexual abuse. And we want to make sure more than anything that our parents, that are caregivers, that are employees, and our volunteers that they are having training around child sexual abuse prevention. It is available, It is out there, and we need to start having the conversations realizing how prevalent it is and that there are things that we can do to protect our children. So something else that often comes up in this conversation spirit. And it's funny because as a child, my mom was always like, there will be no sleepovers. You're not going to anybody else's house, right, And of course as a child, I was like, oh, this is can I go everybody? I'm the only one not going right. But now you have heard more pediatricians and child psychiatrists and things come out saying like this is actually not a good practice, like in terms of like sleepovers and stuff like that. Can you talk more about why that might be the case. Well, listen, I think that those things are not necessarily the best because unfortunately we're not talking openly with our children before they have the opportunity for those environments. I personally love the idea of a great sleepover, but I do not do not, do not allow my children to sleep over at most people's homes. And if they are going to do that, then understand and that we have had months and even years of conversation, we speak openly and honestly with each other, and we are doing reviews before my children ever go anywhere, right, And so we can't have open, honest conversations with our children because most people never learned how to have those conversations because nobody talked to us about those things. So we're uncomfortable talking to children about their body parts. We don't know how to use proper names. You know. I've heard of vagina called everything from a cookie to a pocketbook to a muffin. I've heard a penis called everything from a peter to a paul to a pecker. We don't use the proper names. We don't talk about sexual abuse with children. We don't tell them what is possible. We don't tell them what they need to watch for. We don't tell them what they need to do, and we don't create environments that make them feel safe to come and talk to us if ever they feel like they're having a problem. And so for us, what we will see is families will start to move away from the kinds of activities that we grew up doing thinking that it was fun and safe and everything was okay, because we will move towards a belief that the only way that my children are saying is if they are in my care and under my watchful I seven, but let's be real. How realistic is it that we will be able to keep our children with us seven at all times until they reached the age of adulthood. It's just not realistic, right, right, And you know, even if that were possible, then what happens when they're eighteen right then have not had those conversations and don't know how to navigate conversations only get bigger, right, like when they're off in college or something, trying to navigate consent and you know things. So you know, we really are not doing ourselves are our kids any favors by not having these conversations with them once they're younger. It is inappropriate, of course, right because I think sometimes I think sometimes that's where parents get really weirded out about, like oh, how much you I share? But of course I think there are tons of resources and things available to talk about, like how you can age appropriately talk about different things with your kids. That is absolutely correct. We're not talking about having to explain where babies come from to a four year old and hoping that they can get it using really technical, intense terms. We're talking about getting your children comfortable from the moment they come out of the womb with every part of themselves and being able to own themselves and knowing what people have the right to have access to and what they absolutely don't, and so spared, I want to go back a little bit because you talked about like ninety percent of children are abused by people who are in their sphere of influence, people that the family knows. But we spent a hundred percent of our efforts on the ten percent of people talking about like stranger danger and you know, all of that kind of stuff. How how can we begin to expand that beyond just stranger danger, because of course that's important, but how can we start having some of these conversations with that kid is about some of these other things that may be more sensitive because it is maybe family members and stuff, right, Okay, So it's important then for us to be able to help our children. We gotta understand first and foremost why they're afraid to tell and talk to them about. I talk to folks about how children communicate, right, So we want to teach our children things like they can ask us questions about their bodies, They can talk directly to us about things that they experienced and know that we're gonna be comfortable about that, that we're not gonna get all scared or shut down or become notably uncomfortable. Listen, children have an interesting knack for knowing their parents far better than we give them credit for. We think that we're hiding our uncomfortability. We think that we're hiding the fact that we are uh not knowledgeable about a particular thing, or even sometimes we communicate unknowingly the wrong message to our children that scares our children. Right, So I'll give you a great example, Joy, I have adults, and I can't tell you how many times they have said things to me like I wish somebody would put their hands on my kid. I will kill somebody. I will go to jail, I will hurt somebody, right, And what message does that, unintentionally send to your child. The message that you're hoping to send is that I am going to protect you no matter what. But how a child receives that is very different. And what they come to believe is, oh my gosh, if I tell this, somebody is going to get hurt. If I tell this, my parent might go to jail. And I don't want them to go to jail. If I tell this, then the person that I love that is doing something to me that's making me feel uncomfortable. My parent might kill them. I don't want them to die. So instead, what happens is we unintentionally send our child the wrong message that sends them into hiding, that sends them into secrecy, that makes them become responsible in their minds for keeping the higher family together. So instead, we have to change our dialogue. We have to be able to instead understand who are our children's trusted people, who do they spend the most time with, Be curious about that, Be aware of what their activities are, Be aware of how they're engaging one another, making sure that the boundaries are healthy, making sure that you know what's going on in that relationship. We also have to make sure that we're talking to our children in ways that are safe, that make them feel calm, that make them trust us to know that, no matter what is happening in their world, that we love them, and they can trust us with the knowledge that they are our top priority and that no matter what happens, our job is always to make sure that they are okay. You see, spe This is why I'm just so glad you're here and we're having this conversation, because I think a lot of times we as parents have really great intentions, right, you just said, our whole goal is to try to communicate trust to our kids and to let them know, you know, I would go to the ends of the earth for you, right, But of course we process that as adults. We don't understand what a child is hearing. So for you to say, like I would kill somebody for that, well, of course they don't want anybody to die and they don't want anything to happen to you. But what you're hoping to communicate is the trust in the safety and really thinking about that language and how we can, you know, really slow ourselves down, because like you said, it's important to kind of be calm and you know, measured when you're having these conversations. I think a lot of times to really make sure that we're choosing our words carefully for our kids. Yeah, to be able to say to a child, I love you so much that there's nothing that I wouldn't do for you. There's nothing that you could tell me that would ever change how I love you, that will ever change how I feel about you. And if something like this did happen, right, Because sometimes we don't even want to talk about the possibility that this kind of thing happens in the world, and unfortunately, the reality is it could happen to you. I, as your parents, am going to do everything I can to make sure that this doesn't happen to you. But if ever you get into a situation where someone makes you feel uncomfortable, if ever you get into a situation where someone touches you, if ever you get into a situation where someone threatens you, or if ever you hear or see that someone has done that to somebody that you love or care about, you can come and talk to me, because I'm on your team. I love you, and I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure that you're safe and to make sure that you never have to deal with a situation like that again. And that's the language that you give them. Now, what you do behind the scenes, hello, But what you give to them says my mommy or daddy said that if I come to them, they'll make sure that this never happens to me again. And because I don't want this to happen to me again, I can go to them and tell them. And then we have to believe our children. We have to believe them when they tell us these things. And even if we don't believe it, if we don't want to believe it at our core, we have to at least be willing to dig deeper. We have to be willing to dig deeper. And so even you know, as we go back to this R. Kelly thing, and we hear that, you know now these investigations are being reopened, that these things are being done. These are the kinds of things that we should want to have happen. We don't have to know for certain that a thing has happened to take a second look, or to get an expert to have that investigation, to say, you know what, this child has made this claim. This child is suggesting this. Let's get somebody else, a second pair of objective eyes in here, just to make sure that everything else is okay. And I think that that is something that's a really important takeaway, you know, because I even saw earlier this week, I think it was DL Hughgile's meme. Uh he had something on one of his social media accounts where he said, your daughters will hear you defending R Kelly, and that's why they won't tell you that their uncle is touching them. Right, So we have to be careful of the language and the messaging that we're sending to our children, because they're always listening and they're always taking in and they're measuring what you will do with them based upon how you behave in other situations. So even when you're talking to your girlfriends or even when you're talking to your boys, you have to be careful about the message that you're sending to your children because they're always listening and watching, and that is how they're learning about you and how you will deal with them in your relationship with them. Right, right, So you touched on a little bit spirit, but I do want to hear if there's anything else you would share. Um, So, if you do find out that something has happened to your child, that they have been touched in appropriately, or something has happened, what are the next steps that you should take to you know, kind of get the ball rolling, so to speak. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, So what I would say is first and foremost, and this is gonna be the hardest thing that you would probably be able to do in that moment, maybe even in your life. Listen, calmly and openly. That is going to be so hard when your child is telling you something that is going to jar you. It is going to ignite your fight or flight. It is going to set you on fire. You have to figure out how to listen calmly and openly. You have to go slow and not rush to fill in the gaps. You can't say things like and then did they touch you there? And then what happened? Well, come on, get to it. Tell me what happened next, what happened next. You have to go slow, not ask leading questions. You have to be able to simply say, tell me more, tell me more. And when they're telling you these things, I want you to believe them. Believe them, and also make sure that you affirm them. Tell them how proud of them you are for having the courage to talk to you. Let them know that they haven't done anything wrong in this situation. I don't care what they tell you. I don't care what it is that they've done. I want you to remember that they are the child in this situation, and they are the victim. No matter what they have done in the engagement. It is the responsibility of that adult or that other older person who has put them in that position. And most importantly, you seek professional help for you and for your child, someone who is an expert in the area of child sexual abuse, and you allow them to come in and help you and your family begin to navigate the healing and the investigation and everything else that needs to happen. And I do think this part is so important for it right because how many people do we see in our offices later in life who try to tell and they weren't believed. And I think it's probably one of the most heartbreaking experiences I've handed the therapist, because it's such a heavy burden that people carry throughout their lives and cause them to question so many different things. Yes, you know, and so we have to pay attention to that because most individuals do not get the help that they need. Most child sexual abuse joy still to this day, goes unreported, and so we need to know that. So when individuals are coming into help years later, they've already been dealing with mental illness for so long, whether it's depression, whether it's anxiety, whether it's post traumatic stress disorder, and they've been dealing with it for so long that oftentimes they don't even recognize that they've been sick. They think it's their personality. They think that they've just always been a very withdrawn person, or a promiscuous person, or an angry person, and they don't realize that those are symptoms related to the illness that they've been dealing with because of the abuse that they've suffered. And so we have to make sure that we teach individuals signs. How do you recognize that your child or your team may be in trouble When you recognize that there are things like bruising and bleeding or rashes around your child's genitals, or that your child has urinary track infections are sexually transmitted diseases, or that your child is complaining about chronic pain that doesn't make sense, stomach aches or headaches, and the doctors don't have an answer for some of these things. You have to look for emotional things or environmental things that may be going on. If your child starts to withdraw or becomes depressed their behavior, start changing their clothing, starts changing their grade, starts slipping, who they hang out with, starts slipping. This doesn't necessarily mean that it is sexually related, but these are some of the common things that we see in these areas, and so I would always say seek help when you think something is wrong. You don't have to know it, you just have to recognize it and get your child to help. Let somebody else tell you that nothing else is wrong, but don't overlook the changes that you see in your children. Great point spirit. So again kind of going back to the docuseries, and you know that was drawing in like enough by itself, but I do think the conversations that have spawned since then have also been really like illuminating, just to kind of see, you know, what people are thinking and how they're processing all of this, and so some of um, you know, what I have been paying attention to is older sisters, you know, maybe mental late twenties and thirties, talking about how they had relationships with like when they were fifteen or sixteen, they were dating like twenty one or twenty two year old and not necessarily recognizing that as like a sexual abuse kind of a situation and in real time coming to terms with, oh, that probably wasn't a good idea A little bit about that, because I do think, you know, that is something that is often missed and just like, oh, she's just dating an older guy, or she's into older guys, she's always been more mature or something like that, And I think we often missed that piece. Oh and come on, let me add the caveat okay, because there is the other side of that as well that we don't talk about. And I think sometimes in certain instances, even to a larger degree, we don't talk about it. And that is the number of teen boys sex with grown women. And in our culture in particularly, it is seen as a rite of passage that he is somehow supposed to like it. This fifteen year old boy having sex with this forty year old woman, this high school boy having sex with his boy's mother. We have got to pay attention and recognize that sex with miners. I don't care what their physical bodies look like. They do not have the mental capacity to understand all of the emotional dynamics that go into sex and the act of sex. It is not just state physical act. It has emotional and psychological implications and we don't understand that. And so when we look at these girls who are dating these older boys, or these young men or even older men, we have to look at that for what it is. It is child sexual abuse. And we don't want to think about it in those terms we say she's mature, or we think about it, Oh, girl, he loves you, so you you must be grown. You've always been grown. These young girls who think, yeah, I don't have time for these young boys. I need a man, somebody who can do something for me. They do not have the mental capacities. They do not have the developmental Uh. From a cognitive perspective, that frontal cortext is not fully developed, and so that part of their brains that would control rational thinking, judgment consequence, it is not there. And so I don't care what anybody tells you, we cannot hold children accountable for adult behaviors, right. And unfortunately, you know, in addition to the good conversations that I see coming out of this, there's also that part of it, right that has been really disheartening. And you know, all of the narrative around these fast little girls, and you know, all of that stuff that you also heard in connection to the Doctor series. Yeah, and I think we have to understand the history of that. I've been talking about that all week. And let's just be real, particularly as Black women, our bodies have been hyper sexualized and objectified since colonialism. I wouldn't say since we came to America, because we came to America long before slavery, and our relationship with this continent was much different prior to slavery. But because we were objectified in slavery, we still have the remnants of that in our psyche, not just as Black people, but as Americans. And so most people don't understand that hyper sexualization. How they see black girl roles, how they see black women, and so it is hard for most people not to blame the victim. Oh, well, she was just fast. I mean, look at how they dance, Look at how they're moving, Look at it's the hormones in the milk. There starting puberty so early, of course they know about sex. That is blaming the victim, and we have got to do better. We have got to do better. When you see an eight or nine year old who is hyper sexualized, we have got to recognize that child has been exposed to an inappropriate amount of sexual content. That is not her being fast. Fast. Children are made, they are not born, and so we have to do better by our children and go deeper and ask the questions when we see hyper sexual children or children who are aware of sexually inappropriate things at the wrong age. We have to see that as an alert and we have to sound the alarm. We don't look at that and judge that child. We need to look at that and recognize that child is in trouble, and we need to round them, come around them as a community and get them the help that they need so that they don't grow up to be further victimized or to victimize someone else. Good point, Spirit, And it feels like that. It's kind of like the theme for all you said today is asking more questions and not you know, immediately jumping to conclusions or kind of putting our own assumptions on the situation, but asking more questions of ourselves and our community and of our children. Absolutely, yeah, So what kinds of resources would you point people to? Spirit? For people who you know, want to read more about this, you know, maybe need some kind of checklist of kinds of things they should be asking their kids. Do you have any resources for sure? Now? One of the things I will say, and I will put in the shameless plug only because I'm a member of that organization, Darkness to Light is doing some great work in this area. And not only are they doing great work, but they are doing wonderful trainings. They are committed to being able to edge kate communities, and I mean by communities, I mean everything from uh individual families and neighbors and schools and churches. Their goal is to educate individual adults all over the country about child sexual abuse and ways to prevent it. They actually go out into communities to help you identify hot spots within your organization, how to fix those, how to help adults become more mindful stewards of children. And so I love darkness to light. So that is one organization and if you want resources, you can contact them at eight six six for Light eight six six fo r l I g h T. We can also look at the child abuse helplines like the Child Abuse USA National Child Abuse Hotline. That one is one eight hundred for a child, one eight hundred, the number four a child. And then there are child advocacy centers all over the country, okay, And so if you're interested in finding out, all you have to do is you can go online and do a search in your area for your local child advocacy center. And they are there not only to answer questions, but in the event that a child some sexual abuse is suspected, they can perform forensic interviews. They can go in and assist that family. They can provide resources everything from therapy services to actual investigative services. So the help is out there, the knowledge and the information is out there. I would tell parents, I would tell providers, I would tell therapists. Educate yourself, don't be afraid of education, and don't be afraid to talk to your child. Talking to your child about sexual abuse does not hyper sexualize them. It protects them from the predators who are counting on you not to teach them that they exist in the world. Perfect closing Where perfect? So where can people find you and connect with you through your website and online? Oh, they can find me at Talk to Spirit on all of my social media. That's talk the Number two Spirit. And of course if they ever want to reach me at the office, they can contact me at eight eight eight seven one eight two T two S again eight eight seven eight T T two S. Our office is T two S Enterprises were based in Atlanta, Georgia, but we are all over. Great. Thank you so much for joining us again. Today's Spirit. Absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me I'm so grateful Spirit was able to join us again to share her expertise and some incredibly valuable information. To find out more about her practice, and to check out the resources that she shared, visit the show notes at Therapy for Black Girls dot Com slash Session ninety. Let us know what you thought about the episode by sharing your takeaways with us on Twitter or in your I G stories using the hashtag tv G in session and please be shared to share this episode owed with all of the parents in your circle. Remember that if you're searching for a therapist in your area, check out our directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash directory. And don't forget to grab your Therapy for Black Girls sweatshirts, t shirts, mugs, or a copy of our guided breakup journal in our store at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash shop. And if you want to continue this conversation with other sisters who listen to the podcast, join us over in the Thrive tribe at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash Tribe. Thank y'all so much for joining me again this week, and I look forward to continue in this conversation with you all real soon. Take it care