What about the children

For the past 7 years I can honestly say that 99.9% or the people who contact me via email from my website www.abuseisnoexcuse.co.za , contact me to ask for help in someway for themselves. But sadly recently I have been receiving emails from different people who are extremely concerned about either their own children or the children of a family member.

Where do we begin to help these innocent little people? There was a terrible article in a local magazine recently from a mother whose daughter and grandchildren are trapped in an extremely abusive home. The grandmother was pleading for help before it is too late. The story she told about her son -in-law was horrific.

Soon after this article was published I someone contacted me with a very similar story. She was agonizing about what she could do to help. Fearing not only for her daughter but her grandchildren who are exposed to the abuse.

When my children were very small I often tried to keep the abuse silent, from friends but more importantly silent from the neighbours. I was terrified that if they reported what was going on in my home that my children would be taken away from me. This is a huge problem. The mother is in such trauma herself and fearing for her life that she often clings to her children for her own comfort if not for theirs. If the children were removed from the home she knows that the abuse would escalate because 'he' is likely to say..."and it is all your fault". The abuse is likely to get worse and who knows were it could end up.

Mothers are terrified that their children will be put in foster care which might come with a whole lot more problems. Children being brought up in homes with foster parents who shouldn't be fostering in the first place.

People will ask... How can she do this to her children? For their sake she needs to leave. If it was that simple she would have left long ago. So what are we to do about the children?

My daughters are all grown up and thankfully they are more together than one would expect after being raised in such a dysfunctional homes. They have all been in therapy which has helped them tremendously and we have been through some rough patches when they have not been very understanding towards me and have blamed me in some ways for the trauma they went through. It has been extremely hard, but I always understood that they were children and needed time to work through everything themselves. Today we are united as a family of girls, but what about when they were younger? What could I have done differently to save them from all the violence and excessive drinking. I don't believe I could have done much more than I did.

What are we going to do about the children we know are in abusive homes? Do we sit back and wait for something really bad to happen or even sit back knowing that these children are being traumatized every single day by what they are being exposed to?

Please if you have any thoughts on this please leave your comments.