Most children grow up without being abused. However, it is estimated that 24% of all kids are abused at sometime between the ages of birth through 22. At today's population estimate in the United States of 300,000,000 people, there are 80,000,000 children between the ages of birth through 21 years old. Of that group, 1 out of 3 girls and 1 out of 6 boys will be suffer some form of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, neglect or abandonment. That estimate means that 2 out of every 9 children will be abused over the next 20 years, or over 17,000,000 of our country's children. ONLY HALF WILL EVER BE REPORTED if we let the status quo remain. Children keep quiet about abuse for many complex reasons.

When abuse does occur, it's more likely to be by someone who the child knows, including relatives or friends of the family, than by a stranger. Sometimes older children abuse younger children.

Children who have been, or are being, abused will often be very confused and uncertain about what to do and who to tell. Some children may not even realize that what has been going on or has been done to them is abuse.

Abusers are likely to go to great lengths to keep their behavior a secret. They may use threats to the child, or to other family members, if the child tells. They also play on guilt, and may persuade the child that it was all his/her fault and that he/she really wanted it to happen. Some abusers may pretend that the abuse is normal and a way of showing love in families.

Only a percentage of children who are being abused find the courage to tell someone. These disclosures can be as painful as the abuse itself; the child believing he/she is telling on someone he/she loves and reliving the horrible experiences. They don't want to cause problems; they just want it to stop. No one really knows what makes one child disclose and another not. We do know that it is incredibly important for a disclosure to be heard respectfully and to be believed.

Often when a child discloses abuse, they don't have words to answer all the questions adults ask. They simply don't understand what is happening. Adults, who are already uncomfortable, get frustrated and the whole thing gets dismissed….the child was "making it up" or "fantasizing". Most likely the child won't tell again. After all, he/she wasn't believed, so why bother. And regardless of when the abuse stops, the effects on the survivor last for decades.

For example, of the 220,000,000 Americans over 21 years old today, it is estimated that approximately 55,000,000 of THEM were abused when they were children and, quite likely, they never told anyone about their abuse. The older these survivors of abuse are today, the more likely it is that they never told anyone due to the lack of knowledge at the time of their abuse, general tendencies for our society to "mind our own business" during previous generations, etc.

Every child is vulnerable to abuse and the odds are in favor of 1 out of 5 of us having been abused our about to be abused in our lifetime. NO ONE CAN EVER REGAIN THE CHILDHOOD YEARS THEY LOST TO ABUSE!

So why don't today's children, or for that matter, why didn't yesterday's children who are now 22 through 110 years old tell anyone about their abuse. The reasons can be generally grouped into the following SEVEN AREAS:

Silence Is Easier and children

• Too young to put what has happened into words
• Were threatened or bribed by the abuser to keep the abuse secret
• Feel confused by the attention and feelings accompanying the abuse
• Are afraid no one will believe them
• Blame themselves or believe the abuse is punishment for being "bad"
• Feel too ashamed or embarrassed to tell
• Worry about getting into trouble or getting a loved one into trouble

Silence enables abuse to continue. Silence protects offenders and hurts children who are being abused.

Feelings

Children and teens who have been abused feel many different and overwhelming emotions, including:

Fear

• Of the abuser
• Of causing trouble
• Of losing adults important to them
• Of being taken away from home
• Of being "different"

Anger

• At the abuser
• At other adults around them who didn't protect them
• At themselves (feeling as if they caused trouble)
• Because "something is wrong with me"
• Because they feel alone in the experience
• Because they have trouble talking about the abuse

Sadness

• About having something taken from them
• About being betrayed by someone they trusted
• About growing up too fast

Guilt

• For not being able to stop the abuse
• For believing they "consented" to the abuse (no child is capable of consent)
• For "telling" - if they told
• For keeping the secret - if they did not tell
• About being involved in the experience
• About their bodies response to the abuse (for instance, if they found fondling pleasurable)

Confusion

• Because they may still love and care about the abuser
• Because their feelings change all the time

As you can see, there are many complex reasons why only half of all abuse is EVER reported. This results in the unbelievable demographic that almost 73 million Americans in today's population are survivors of childhood abuse (or will be).