Interfaith Sexual Trauma Institute

 

Saint John's Abbey and University
Collegeville, Minnesota 56321
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ISTI Book Reviews

ISBN 1-930586-16-7 Neddermeyer, Dorothy, If I'd Only Known:  Sexual Abuse in or out of the Family, a Guide to Prevention. Salt Lake City, Millennial Mind Publishing, 2002, pb, 200 pp.

 

The sexual abuse of children can happen with most any youngster by most any adult but some children are especially vulnerable to being abused and some adults are particularly driven to violating them.  Predatory adults threaten families and communities as safe havens and alert us to the need to be informed, vigilant, and clear about shielding children from harm.  This timely guidebook is an important step in that direction by alerting parents, leaders, and caregivers to common dangers and calculated grooming that can threaten the well being of children in the home and community.  This book is eminently practical and filled with a lot of common sense checks and reminders, the kind of guidance detail that can come from the author's experience as a therapist.  With specific examples of how abuse occurs, the author expands her solid overview of the issues in the first half of the book.  The last half is devoted to what to do concerns and checklists.  This is a guide to prevention that includes also a nice bibliography for additional in-depth help.