The Stages of Sexual Grooming Every Parent Should Know
This is knowledge about sexual grooming from someone who experienced it
I have experienced grooming as an adult and a child. I am a co-parent to a child who was sexually groomed. I was also sexually groomed as a little girl. There are many misconceptions about sexual grooming. One of the most disheartening responses I see is those blaming the child’s caregiver/s or even the child for the abuse.
Oprah said it best when she told her audience that if a sexual predator is good at grooming, he or she will make the victim think it was all their idea. What she didn’t hit upon is the way a sexual groomer grooms the caregivers as well.
In my series of short stories about a child bride in the deep south, I try to convey how this works through the eyes of the main character. I know it firsthand having been groomed from birth by a sex abuser who also happened to be my father.
These are the four stages of sexual grooming according to Stages of Sexual Grooming by G. Winters and…
