How we can avoid silencing children about forbidden topics

While there has been some improvement in children’s ability to talk about their experiences of abuse, much more can be done to support their safety and agency. 

Our discussion paper explored some of the challenges educators face due to the views of society and government policies. These include power in society and silencing children’s voices. Both these issues can be addressed through early intervention and trauma based approaches. 

Power in society

Power in Australian society, like in many other societies, lies with those who make decisions. These decision-makers are adults who are still more likely to be from the dominant cultural and gender group (i.e., white males). Children are normally positioned as an ‘out-group’ in society, relying on adults to have their best interests at heart. 

Adults make decisions about children’s education, families, communities, and their environment. Using power over others in this way is considered a form of violence, rather than sharing power with children by taking their voices into account in matters that affect them. This was made law by the Australian Government in 1990 when they ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

When we do not heed these rights, the imbalance of power plays out in various ways. Perhaps the most damaging for children’s healthy development and mental health, is when the power is used abusively (physical, sexual, economic, verbal, emotional, social and spiritual abuse). Society’s attitudes towards abuse mean that it is difficult for children to raise these issues because they are considered ‘forbidden topics’ and distasteful for adults, and especially children, to discuss. 

Silencing children’s voices

When children do discuss abuse, they risk being silenced, ignored, disbelieved, isolated, or even punished for their disclosure. Sometimes, they find the right adult to whom to disclose. 

Research shows, however, that it is often another child who is the first person to know about the abuse. This creates a huge burden of care on the other child, so training and support is needed to build children’s capacity to know what to do in such cases. 

If children wait until they are adults until they disclose, they risk backlash from those in society who say they are seeking money, attention and are mentally ill. Laws and practices in our justice system also make it difficult to put themselves through stressful court proceedings. Those accused often use the amount of time passed since the abuse occurred and the unreliability of the childhood memories as defence strategies, meaning that silencing children often results in no punitive outcomes for abusers.

Figure 1: How silencing children occurs, and how to address it

The need for early intervention 

The need for early intervention is key, not only for children who are targeted for abuse, but for those children to whom they disclose. In addition, many children in our services are exposed to transgenerational transference of trauma and vicarious trauma due to their parent’s exposure. Through our genes, trauma and its impacts can also be passed on to children across generations through epigenetic processes.

The intervention needed to address this should be interdisciplinary, child-centred, age and culturally appropriate, and freely available. These are all characteristics common in early childhood pedagogy. 

According to the authors of National Children’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy:

There is nothing that will have more impact on improved mental health outcomes for all Australians than early intervention. Investing in the wellbeing of children and their families will have radiating benefits throughout our communities as well as through the broader health and education systems.

The need for trauma-based approaches and prevention education

Adding to their child-centred pedagogy, early childhood educators need to be trauma informed, then implement trauma-based approaches. There is no point in being ‘informed’ without actions. This approach begins with awareness of the signs of stress in children. It should be noted that these are often individual responses which require thorough knowledge of each child developed through observations and sustained interactions. Resources to assist identifying these signs of trauma are being developed and trialled. 

Above all, educators need to make their services places where children feel safe, can play and be nurtured, and disclose if they choose to. They also need to be places where troubling behaviours are viewed as attempts to communicate and adaptations are made to manage stress caused by trauma. 

Conclusion

Overall, children must be supported by caring and safe adults, societies and systems that enable them to speak about the unspeakable, know that they will be listened to and believed. Only then will the perpetrator’s powers be diminished, and children will be allowed to roam free in a safe world.