■
behaviors
Use parenting strategies that prevent and
■
reduce sexual and other behavior problems
Address sexual education topics with your child
■
Support abuse prevention strategies and skills
■
Enhance communication skills and improve the
■
quality of your relationship with your child
Other treatment characteristics that may be helpful
include addressing the following topics with the child
in an age-appropriate way:
Privacy rules, sexual behavior rules, and
■
boundary rules
Abuse-prevention skills
■
The labeling and expressing of feelings and skills to reduce distress
■
Impulse-control strategies and decision-making skills
■
Social skills
■
Most children with sexual behavior problems can benefit
from
outpatient therapy
. Outpatient therapy allows the child
to stay in the home and community and usually involves the
child, the parents, and other important caregivers and family
members. Outpatient therapy is relatively short term, and
can often be completed in three to six months if the family
regularly attends therapy sessions, actively participates in
services, and practices skills between sessions.
Some children will require more intensive treatments. These
include
inpatient treatment
and
residential care
. These
options are generally reserved for more severe cases, such
as children who:
Have severe psychiatric disorders, such as psychotic symptoms (like hearing voices)
■
Exhibit highly aggressive or coercive sexual behaviors or sexual behavior problems that
■
continue even when they get treatment and are closely supervised by their parents
Have suicidal ideations (including specific plans for killing themselves)
■
Have specific plans to physically harm others