Self help modules:
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.
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:
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:
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.
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:
Together with the practical steps in making a safe home environment, good communication and respectful interactions within the family are important to create a space that feels safe for everyone. Open and supportive communication in families plays an important role in helping keep people safe.
Use the table below to think about the communication styles in your family or household. We have added in some examples to show how you can fill in the table.
Think about how members of your family/household talk to each other. List some examples of their usual tone, things they say and how they treat other members of the family.
| Family member | Their communication style when they are calm/ happy/ content | Consequences (e.g. how does this communication style make others feel?) | Their communication style when they are angry/ tired/ stressed | Consequences (e.g. how does this communication style make others feel?) |
| My partner | Bubbly, funny, encouraging, understanding | I feel heard. The kids laugh at their jokes and enjoy making fun with them. | Snaps at us; has screamed when very angry | Makes me feel bad about myself. The kids looked worried and scared when they screamed. |
| Oldest son | Asks lots of questions, smiles and laughs | Makes me feel warm and happy. | Gets quiet, cries, slams doors. | Makes me worried, sad, leaves me feeling powerless. |
Reflect on your answers in the exercise above and think about how you can adapt your own communication style to help build trust, honesty and clear boundaries in your family.
We know from research and from our experience of working with people who have had sexual thoughts or feelings towards their child(ren) that relationships and relationship problems can be related to the start or maintenance of these sexual thoughts or feelings. Dealing with relationship issues is never an excuse for sexual behaviour with a child, but it is important to address these issues to reduce any risks.
If you are dealing with parenting challenges or problems in your relationship with your partner, you are not alone. Such challenges are very common. You can find advice for parenting issues on the NSPCC website and Family Action website.
If you are going through problems in your relationship with your partner, you may want to consider the following:
Sometimes though, relationships may not be healthy and either require some additional support or it may indeed be the healthiest option to end the relationship. You can find out more about what makes a relationship unhealthy and get support and advice if you are in an unhealthy or abusive relationship from NHS page on domestic abuse, Next Chapter Men, Men’s Advice Line, or the Respect phoneline (this is for people who want to stop their own abusive behaviour in relationships).
Relationships are nuanced and can be complicated. If you are struggling with your relationships with family members, speak to our friendly and non-judgmental helpline advisors, anonymously and confidentially. We are here to support you in a way that is tailored to you and your family.
Think back to the situations that have raised your worries and concerns and reflect on what happened in detail. This will help you identify some further points to prevent similar situations and concerns arising in the future.
Describe your concern in detail | |||
Who was involved? |
| ||
Where did this happen? |
| ||
When did it happen? |
| ||
Describe your thoughts, feelings and behaviours before, during and after this event | |||
| Thoughts | Feelings | Behaviour |
Before the event (this could be just before or during a longer period leading up to the event) |
|
|
|
During the event |
|
|
|
After the event (this could be immediately after or a longer period after the event) |
|
|
|
How did you deal with the first situation that worried you? Have similar situations happened since? How have your thoughts, feelings, behaviours towards the child(ren) developed since?
Thinking about the children you have sexual thoughts or feelings about, and the situations in which these arise, consider whether there are particular scenarios where you feel concerned or uneasy. What are the triggers, situations, thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that tend to occur during these times? We will take a closer look at these below.
The thoughts or behaviours that have worried you may have come up or intensified in situations that were difficult for you. Examples are conflict with a partner, financial difficulties, bereavement, or health issues. When you deal with such situations or stressors, it gets more difficult to manage sexual thoughts or feelings. What can you do to address these stressors in a more helpful way?
Here are some websites that can help with some of the examples listed above:
What feelings relate to the situations you have been worried about? These could be feelings about the child(ren), yourself, other people or other circumstances. Some people develop romantic feelings towards children. Others may experience negative emotions, for example due to stress in their life, and in turn use sexual thoughts and behaviours to deal with these negative emotions.
Think about where these feelings stem from and why you are experiencing them or have developed them.
You may find the modules in the Wellbeing/Self-Care section helpful to further understand, recognise and manage feelings.
Concerning sexual thoughts or behaviours can go together with other harmful or problematic behaviours, such as addictive or compulsive behaviours. What problematic behaviours can you see that may be related to the sexual thoughts or behaviours involving your child(ren)? Examples of problematic behaviours include problematic use of adult pornography and alcohol/drug use.
Some people will use pornography to manage their sexual needs. While this may be ok for some people, it can also be risky. You may be looking at sexual images or videos of adults, but your thoughts go somewhere else. For example, you may view material that allows you to place yourself in risky fantasy scenarios or think about children you know. It is important to consider how fantasies can reinforce a sexual attraction. In addition, frequent use of pornography can lead to a feeling that certain material is “not enough” and escalate to using more extreme and harmful content. The diagram below shows why pornography use can escalate.
You can find further support for use of pornography in our Adult pornography module.
People may use alcohol or drugs/substance recreationally. Drugs and alcohol can help people unwind and relax, they may feel helpful in dealing with stress. But alcohol and drugs can cloud your judgment and make it difficult to manage your impulses. Alcohol or drugs can make it harder to make safe choices, which raises the risk of causing sexual harm. If you need support for your alcohol/drug use, you can speak to your GP.
You may find our module addiction useful.
Sexual thoughts or behaviours about children are often linked to thinking styles that justify harmful thoughts and behaviours. This can be thoughts about a specific child you know, or it could be more generally about children or sex. For example, someone with sexual thoughts about a child may think “He/she is enjoying being with me, they must want to have a sexual relationship with me”, “She is wearing a short skirt, so she wants me to look”, “He comes and joins me in the bed, therefore he is asking for me to touch him”. Likewise, some people hold beliefs that they deserve sex, such as “I am the head of the household, so I can take what I want”, “My partner owes me sex”, “It is okay for me to touch my stepdaughter because her mother won’t have sex with me”.
Think about which thoughts you have used to make sexual activity with your child more permissible. Such thoughts might have occurred before, during or after you have thought or acted sexually towards your child(ren). Write these thoughts down. Now, ask yourself where these thoughts have stemmed from. Cultural, societal and individual factors can all be important here, for example, male socialisation, beliefs learned from own parents/caregivers, opinions of peers, having low self-esteem or feeling more comfortable around children than adults.
Note down examples you may say to yourself to make your behaviour okay. Then respond to them with more realistic and helpful thoughts. You can already find some examples in the table below.
Justification | Response |
“He/she is enjoying being with me, they must want to have a sexual relationship with me” | “He/she is just enjoying spending time with me as a parent. My responsibility is to care for them and keep them safe” |
“She is wearing a short skirt, so she wants me to look”
| “She is dressing the way she likes, she doesn’t dress for me. It is my responsibility to act appropriately” |
“He comes and joins me in the bed, therefore he is asking for me to touch him” | “He wants cuddles and needs closeness. That does not mean sexual contact” |
“It is okay for me to touch my stepdaughter because her mother won’t have sex with me” | “No one owes me sex and I can manage my sex drive safely on my own” |
“She is smiling when I cuddle her, so she must be wanting more” | “She enjoys the cuddles and that’s it. Her smiling does not mean she is encouraging me to do anything else.” |
“I deserve to act on my high sex drive” | “I can manage my sex drive without involving anyone else, especially if they don’t want to” |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This module covers areas that can be very challenging and confronting. Check in with yourself – how are you doing now? You have done well in working through this. You may have only skim read this module, or you might have sat down and worked through each exercise in a lot of detail. Every step you have taken is a step towards keeping your child(ren) safer. We can support you on this journey. Our friendly and non-judgmental advisors are available to talk this through with you, anonymously and confidentially.
This module aims to help you explore and gain understanding of problematic sexual behaviours, motivations, patterns and trends.
This module will help you to explore, different types of triggers, your own triggers, potential warning signs of sexual abuse, including grooming and situational and environmental risks.
This module aims to help you explore and gain understanding of:
This module will help you explore and understand your current sexual and non-sexual fantasies, and the link between your fantasies and your online behaviour
This section is designed to help you explain terminology around unusual sexual interests (paraphilias) and learn how to lead a healthy life with these interests.
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.
Our confidential helpline is free and available to anyone concerned about the safety of children.
