Many parents would like to think that they would be able to spot a pedophile if they were in close proximity to one. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Pedophiles are often very good at hiding their true nature, which makes them all the more dangerous. 

According to the report, 93% of perpetrators are known to the victim. It means the perpetrators can be someone the victim already knows. They can be their teachers, friends, family friends, or neighbor. 

Moreover, there are also cyber predators who are hard to identify. If you don’t know what cyber predators look like, you can’t protect your child from them. So, how do you supposed to find them?

While it is impossible to know whether someone is a pedophile, certain warning signs can help you spot one. If you are aware of these warning signs, you will be in a better position to protect your child from potential harm. So, what are these warning signs? Keep reading to find out!

What Is Pedophilia: Mental Illness or Act of Violence?

Pedophiles are adults or late-aged adolescents (16 years) who prefer sexual contact with pre-pubescent children (typical infants to 13 years old). The condition is characterized by a mature person’s desire to have sexual relations with a child, usually under 13 years old.

The age difference between the child and the 16-year-old molester must be five years for them to be considered child molesters.

As a psychosexual disorder, pedophilia is classified as a paraphilia in DSM-IV and DSM-IV-TR.  They often interact with the child as friends and try to involve them in sexual connections. A victim may die in some cases.

Sheepish or rejected kids are especially vulnerable to abuse by pedophiles. However, they can also groom your child through the internet or at home.

Pedo refers to “child” in Greek, whereas the word phile comes from Latin and French, meaning to love. Children are the only target of the Exclusive type of pedophile. 

Pedophilia vs. ephebophiles

A pedophile is one who is primarily attracted to prepubescent children (although in the media, pedophiles are defined as those attracted to individuals under majority age, which is incorrect. In fact, an adolescent could be a pedophile even as late as 15 or 16 if they have a sexual interest in prepubescent children.

A pedophile is someone with two or more allegations of sexual abuse with victims under the age of 10.

Ephebophiles, in contrast, are those who had two or more accusations against only male victims between 13 and 17 years of age. There is no psychiatric diagnosis associated with it. Further, ephebophiles are attracted to adolescents in their middle to late teens.

Diagnosis of Pedophilia

The symptoms of pedophilia include vivid sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviors that recur among adolescents or prepubescent children. The diagnosis usually occurs when the person is 16+ years old and five years older than the actual target of the fantasies or abusive behaviors.

Healthcare practitioners sometimes face an ethical dilemma when identifying patients as possible pedophiles. It should be noted, however, that they must consider someone a sexual offender if they find them acting in a sexually suggestive behavior. Therefore, you must inform the police of their activities.

The use of excessive child pornography may be the only indicator of child sexual attraction. Pornographic images of children alone do not constitute pedophilia; despite being illegal, they do not meet the criteria for pedophilia.

Occasionally, diagnostic tools can help confirm sexual attraction to children in patients who deny it. The tools that you can use to diagnose are

• Vaginal photoplethysmography for women.
•  Penile plethysmography for men, 
• and viewing time of standardized erotic materials.

 In some jurisdictions, possessing such materials is illegal, even for diagnostic purposes.

                       Read More: Is your teen into sexting and sextortion?

How to Spot a Pedophile: 10 Signs That Can Save Your Child from Abuse

Identifying a pedophile is a pretty tricky task. In most cases, pedophiles are normal people living nearby or working at your child’s school. In order to prevent your child from becoming a victim of child molesters, it is essential to know the signs of pedophilia.

• Unusual interest in child activities

It is an evident sign of pedophilia. Pedophilia shows an intense interest in children’s activities.  Pedophilia often spends time in a child-friendly environment and enjoys playing with children rather than picking activities geared toward adults. 

Most of the hobbies of a child molester appear childlike, even if they don’t have children, such as collecting toys and playing with dolls and cars. 

• Interested in or watching child pornography

Another noticeable sign of pedophilia is viewing child/ kid pornography. They are also supposed to keep a collection of adult movies and DVDs. Additionally, they store child-adult pornography and child-erotic content at all costs.

• Always tries to stay alone with a child

We often overshadow it, but we must alert ourselves that sexual predators can be someone we know. So, when your family friend, their teacher, wants to spend more time with your children, you must be careful.

Sexual predators often try to take your child on trips, so pay more attention. However, it can be their love towards your child, but to make sure, you can ask for every detail of their spent time with your kid.

• Friendship with vulnerable kids

Pedophiles find an easy target to get those children who were abdomen from their families and who lack emotional support. Single parents tend to be a target of pedophiles since they don’t have the time or finances to supervise their children without their help. 

That’s why they spend their time and money and gain their trust. They treat children as friends and try to engage them in watching adult films and browsing age-inappropriate pictures. 

 As a result, kids can be lured into sexual relationships with predators before they know it.

• Look for signs of grooming

Observe grooming signs. It’s the process pedophiles use to gain the trust of children and sometimes the parents’ trust as well.

It doesn’t take pedophiles more time than years to become your trusted family member, take your children shopping, offer to babysit, and so on. Once they gain the trust, then only their real game of molestation begins.

The predators may use some games and dolls to gain the trust and apply some tactics. Remember that these techniques are designed to isolate and confuse your child. 

Further, it includes keeping secrets (kids value secrets because they are regarded as “adults” and sources of power), kissing,  playing sexually explicit games, touching, showing sexual interest, exposing children to pornographic material, physical contact, coercing, bribing, flattering, and, most importantly, loving them.

• Provoking Anger to Parents in a Child

A predator may also criticize the victim’s family members’ parenting approach to gain trust. They try to convince your child that you are restricting them from doing things and limiting their freedom.

They try their best to pull your child from the family and make them believe they are big enough to do adult activities like sex.

• Active Internet Groomer

In the real world, it is easy to recognize the child abuser and molester by their actions. But your child can barely remember the online predator. 

Online groomer actively engages in social media and select a particular person as their target. And since they create a fake profile and be friends with your child, internet grooming is easy for them.

• Mental or Mood Disorders

Pedophilia is recognized as a psychosexual disorder that is accompanied by other psychological disorders. So, it can also be a warning sign. However, not everyone suffering from a mental disorder is a child abuser.

• Good Relations with the Victim

Child Abusers often focus on one single person and make them a target. And abusers try their best to gain the trust of victims. Once they have a good term with the victim, bang on, and they start their cheap action. 

Further, in most cases, the abuser turns out to be someone the victim knows. That’s why they can be your child’s babysitter, family friend, or the victim’s teacher. In the worst case, it can turn out to be a close family member who introduces your child to sexual activity.

• Use of “Angelic” Terms to Describe Kids

Child abusers make inappropriate comments about children. But sometimes, they prefer to use divine-related words to describe children. 

The words such as “innocent,” “pure,” and “angel.”

Note: These characteristics alone do not necessarily qualify the person as a pedophile.

Treatment of pedophilia

A child’s mind cannot sense when predators are manipulating, abusing, or grooming them. Since the child abuser does it after winning the child’s trust, bribing them with a gift, or telling them as a secret game, it is impossible to get them caught.  

And unless the child abusers get caught, he never stops their abusive behavior. So, it’s necessary to treat pedophiles in time. 

Pedophilia can be treated with either pharmacotherapy (drugs that suppress sexual appetite), Cognitive Behavior Therapy, or both. Sexually deviant behavior can be prevented through Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT).

Although pedophiles can be treated, they can never be cured. It is because the sexual preference of pedophiles will always be a child.

Treatment for pedophiles is therefore focused on changing, curbing, or re-directing their behavior.

Are all pedophiles child molesters?

One of the challenges in addressing this problem is that child sexual abusers are often not who we think they are. They come from all walks of life and can be of any age, race, or gender. They can be family members, friends, babysitters, coaches, teachers, or even strangers. 

And the fact is that pedophiles may not be child molesters in all cases. As it is a psychiatric disorder, some predators may view the pornography content, but they may not sexually abuse children. However, it is a crime as well.

Further, don’t consider the adult who spends time with your children as a pedophile or sexual offender by default. When someone is wrongly accused of pedophilia, they can suffer from severe depression and social anxiety and are being slandered.

How to Prevent a Child from Being Abused?

A parent’s worst nightmare is having their child molested. So, to prevent a child from being abused,  you can apply some preventive measures. Several federal laws are devoted to combating child abuse. The law is different from country to country.  When the person proves guilty, they get punishment per the country’s law.

However, the law cannot protect children from uncovered child abusers that pose a threat right now. However, you can apply some preventive measures to protect a child from being sexually abused.

• Find out if there are pedophiles in your neighborhood

The first thing you can do is find out the sexual predators that may live near you. If you belong to the US, you can take the help of the US Department of Justice National Sex Offender. They help you to find out if there are any registered sex offenders residing in your neighborhood. 

• Supervise your children’s extracurricular activities

Keep yourself as engaged as possible in your child’s life. It helps you to better guard against child molesters. 

Child molesters target the child who is not getting attention from their parents. So, attend the school’s events, games, rehearsals, and field trips.

If you can’t present in their school’s program, ensure that at least people you trust are attending the program. Don’t leave your children with unknown people. Sometimes leaving your children with relatives is also risky. Your involvement and presence as a parent should be clear.

• Teach your children about online safety

Educate your child that some predators can act like teenagers and try to be close to you to lure children in online. Make sure that they are using mobile phones only for educational purposes. If they need to talk to their friends, keep the rules and limit “chat time.” 

Further, tell them not to send pictures to their online friends. Also, ask them to tell with whom they are chatting. 

• Ensure that your child feels emotionally supported 

Provide emotional support to your children. Spend quality time with your kid because abandoned children are vulnerable to sexual predators. Build good connections by talking to your children and keeping information about their daily life.

Keep the lines of communication open between your child and their parents, even if someone asks them to keep things private. Further, engage in your child’s activities, whether schoolwork, extracurricular activities, hobbies, or other enjoyable pursuits. 

• Teach them about inappropriate touching

Parents should define good and bad touch. And you should tell them to be vocal if someone touches them badly. There is also secret touch that the sex offenders ask the child to keep secret. 

So some parents define private areas to the children and tell them to come to you when someone touches there.  

• Use Parental Control Application

Further, to ensure your child’s online safety, you can monitor the child’s online activities. And for that, you can use parental control applications such as MobileSpy.io to restrict strangers from getting in touch with your child. You can block them from phone contacts and social media sites.

Moreover, if your child leaves home without informing you, the monitoring software on the child’s phone will help you to detect their location. Additionally, if someone sends your child inappropriate images and videos, you can find them and block them there. 

A child sexual abuse act can cause a mental health problem that can last a lifetime. So, why wait? Protect your child before they get sexually abused.

Besides the above preventive ways, you can ask your children to share their experiences if they have gone through them. 

Don’t make them feel judged. Try to encourage them. You can give them an example of some sexual assault cases and adult survivors of sexual assault or childhood sexual abuse to make them feel they can overcome the hassle they have gone through. 

Conclusion

Child sexual abuse is a severe problem that is all too common. It is reported that one in four girls and one in six boys will become victims of sexual abuse before turning 18. Many of these cases go unreported, and the perpetrators are never brought to justice. 

So, how can we protect our children from these sex offenders? The first step is to be able to identify them. It can be difficult, as they are often very good at hiding their true intentions. However, the above certain warning signs can help spot a child abuser. Further, use the parental control application for your child’s safety.