Discussing sex with your child is not usually comfortable for the parent or the child. Older kids tend to laugh you off and tell you that they already know all about it, even if they do not know important facts. Discussing sex with a preteen seems premature after all; kids do not need that information in elementary school. We need to let them be kids for as long as possible. Unfortunately, that just is not true in the twenty-first century. By the first year in junior high school, 40 percent of adolescents may be having intercourse. This information is according to the (NHI) National Institute for Health. For most of them, their parents have not broached the subject of safe sex, condom use, relationships, and birth control. That makes their behaviors even more risky for STIs and unplanned pregnancies. The NHI is advising parents to begin open discussions with their children about sexual behavior between six and nine.

Living here in the Midwest, we know that snowstorms are inevitable. We have had a few flakes here and there over the past month. However, we have not had enough snow to cause major accidents, school closings, snowmen, or snow angels until last night that is. Schools all around the state announced their closings this morning, as did area colleges, driver’s training, sporting events, and church groups. In fact, extra-curricular activities began canceling scheduled events last night. Believe me, when you are 69 years old, parenting three teenagers and one elementary child you look forward to school days and extra-curricular activities. The first snow is beautiful of course, and helps get us all into the Christmas mood.

A reader found Adoption Under One Roof seeking the answer to the question:

Where is God when your child is abused?

As someone who was severely abused as a child, I have wrestled with this question for years. I have written about this topic extensively on my personal blog:

• Getting Past Feeling like God Deserted You after Child Abuse
• Shouldn’t God be Expected to Protect Children?
• Where is God During Child Abuse?
• Where Was God When I Was Being Abused?
• Why Would a Loving God Allow Pain and Child Abuse?
• Words of Wisdom from “The Shack”: Where is God During Abuse?

After wrestling with this question for years, here are the conclusions that I have drawn in a nutshell:

A reader found Adoption Under One Roof by searching for the answer to this question:

Is it normal to dream of the person who sexually abused you?

The short answer is yes – this is completely normal. It is also normal for the abuser never to appear in your dreams. It all ties into how ready a sexual abuse survivor is to begin dealing with the aftermath of the sexual abuse.

After my father passed away, I used to dream about him all the time. This is because my subconscious was trying to process the fact that my father was dead. He died suddenly in his early forties, so I had a lot to process as a teenager. However, I never dreamed about my mother, who sexually abused me throughout my childhood. That did not happen until I was ready to begin healing from the sexual abuse.

Dreams after sexual abuse can be very scary and disturbing.

On Trauma Tuesday, I wrote about sexually abused children who feel responsible for being sexually abused by older siblings. Today, I would like to broaden the scope to talk about children who feel responsible for the sexual abuse they endured.

If you were never sexually abused yourself, you might be surprised to learn that many sexual abuse survivors believe that they are at least partially responsible for the sexual abuse that they endured, even though they were only children when the abuse happened. To an adult who was never sexually abused, the truth that a child cannot possibly invite or consent to a sexual relationship is obvious. However, a normal aftereffect of sexual abuse is for the traumatized foster or adopted child to believe that he is, at least in part, responsible for the sexual abuse, even if the perpetrator was an adult.

There is actually a rational reason for sexual abuse survivors embracing this belief.