The family home is the most important space for children to develop. Everyone needs to feel secure and comfortable at home. It is crucial for parents/carers to create a safe environment. This module is designed to support you if you have had any worries or concerns about your sexual thoughts or feelings towards children in your home, such as:
- Is it okay for family members to walk in on each other in the bathroom?
- I increasingly see my teenage daughter as my ‘partner’ – what should I do?
- I felt sexually aroused when my child sat on my knee – what should I do?
Having had a sexual thought about your biological child or a child you care for at home can be scary and confusing. There are lots of steps you can take to ensure everyone is safe at home. Work through this module and speak to us – we can help you.
A safe home environment is one where everyone can be themselves, feel supported and can thrive. A safe environment means that children are safe from neglect or any kind of abuse; that includes emotional, physical and sexual abuse. Any sexual interaction with a dependent child is child sexual abuse – this includes touching and other direct sexual contact, but also sexual behaviours that don’t involve direct contact, such as masturbating in front of a child or watching children undress for your own sexual pleasure.
You can take practical steps to ensure everyone feels comfortable and safe at home. From our own research in this area, we know that examples of risky situations for people at home include:
- Family nudity (both child nudity and adult nudity) in front of each other
- Bathing or showering together with your child
- Shared sleeping arrangements
- Adapting to new living arrangements, such as moving in with a partner and step-children and managing different ways of showing affection.
Exercise 1: Rules for a safe home environment
Think about any of your own examples you have been worried or unsure about. Who was involved? What happened? What happened afterwards? What were your concerns and your feelings about these situations?
What rules, boundaries or changes in the environment will help maintain safety and wellbeing in the future? You can use our Family Safety Plan template to put together a clear plan around boundaries and rules. We can support you in filling this in.
Speaking to your family
Talking to your family about rules and boundaries around issues such as new living arrangements, nudity, expressing physical affection, and sexuality can be daunting, but is crucial in ensuring everyone understands how to be safe at home. If you don’t include others, safety is reliant on your own willpower. If you include others, you create a safety net, making it easier for you to manage when sexual thoughts become more challenging.
How to speak to your family:
- Get everyone involved, but if you have a co-parent, you may want to speak with your co-parent first
- Discuss rules and boundaries that everyone wants to make their home a safe space
- Agree on rules for expressing physical affection
- Get children involved in how to put rules into place, e.g. make ‘Occupied’ signs together for bathrooms/bedrooms; pick out bathrobes/clothes and hang up hooks to have them handy when leaving bedrooms or bathrooms