All children are vulnerable to pedophiles. I'll let you recover from that for a moment. Like with any other risk to children, not all of them are at the same level of risk. There are steps you can take to reduce the various risks to your kids. If they trick-or-treat, put those reflective stickers on them so they don't get hit by a car, if they ride a bike, make them wear a helmut so they don't break their head open when they fall off, if they go boating, make them wear a life jacket so they don't drown, and if they're going to interact with humanity, teach them as much accurate information about sex as you can. It may seem random and strange to you to bring up child molestation on a blog relating to autism, but I do so for a purpose. You remember I said that there are varying levels of risk? Well, it's mostly about how easy it is to get away with it, which can mean how easily the victim is manipulated. Knowing how easily manipulated I was a child, and remain to this day, I'm pretty sure the only reason I wasn't molested is because no one ever tried. Autistic kids are highly vulnerable to pedophiles. Uncomfortable as it is, we're going to have to talk about this and understand it. No, it won't be fun, but it needs to be done.
As I said, victims are chosen based about how easy it is to get away with it. That's an easy line of logic to follow. We start with the ones no one will believe or care about. Kids who cause trouble, kids from criminal families, kids from poor families, mentally handicapped kids, and I'm sure you can imagine more categories like this. Then you've got kids the pedophile recognizes as easy to manipulate. Autistic kids are like that, but so are many types of kids. Logic can be twisted like a pretzel by a predator dealing with a naive kid. Leveraging power is another thing to look out for. Sometimes, it's institutional, like Penn State or the Roman Catholic Church, and the institution is considered so important that it's either considered beyond reproach or molestation gets actively covered up by otherwise decent people. Other times, it's more personal power, like the pedophiles who date single moms and are always happy to babysit. Gifts and financial resources will change the mom's life, and the predator will convince the victim to endure molestation rather than cause financial hardship in the family. That guy in the creepy van probably isn't molesting kids because that's a poor strategy for repeatedly getting away with it.
While you may imagine extra vigilance, sex offender pictures on websites, and being extra suspicious are the best ways to go about preventing molestation, it's actually most helpful to teach your kids the most about sex you can. I know children are supposed to remain innocent, especially when they're prepubescent, but here it's just ignorance of the very information that could help prevent molestation or get them to tell you right away. If you'd rather your kid get molested than have accurate information about sex, I'd say you must sort out your priorities. Tell them the correct anatomical terms for all of their sexual anatomy, explain what sex is, why people like it, its reproductive nature, and why adults should not be having it with minors. Explain adults having sex with minors is wrong without words like, "sick," or, "disgusting." Simply say that minors are too young to consent to sex and that an adult who has sex with a minor involving said minor in something for which they are not ready and harms them. Finally, tell them to tell you if any adult ever does anything like that to them. Make them understand that this rule supersedes all others and that it will always be okay to tell you. It won't be easy, but you didn't sign up for easy. You signed up to parent and you must protect your kids. This way works. Do it.
-Frank
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