Why children develop harmful sexual behaviour
Children and young people who develop harmful sexual behaviour have usually experienced abuse and neglect themselves.
A study by Hackett et al (2013) of children and young people with harmful sexual behaviour suggests that two-thirds had experienced some kind of abuse or trauma such as physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, severe neglect, parental rejection, family breakdown, domestic violence, and parental drug and alcohol abuse. Around half of them had experienced sexual abuse.
Research by Hawkes (2009) into the family histories of sexually abusive boys found:
"children had grown up in an environment where their physical or verbal expressions of distress or arousal were not understood, but rather met with angry or fearful responses from their caregivers. Wilful or unconscious ignoring, misunderstanding or repressing of the children’s needs were also recurring themes. Even developmentally normal sexual behaviour by the boys was not understood by caregivers, who tended to react as though the child was a sexual threat or in some other way a sexual peer. The child’s sexual needs were not recognised and in the most extreme cases they appeared to create a pseudo-adult sexual persona to meet the expectations of caregivers."
Children who have been sexually abused may not know that what has happened to them is wrong. This can lead to normalisation of harmful sexual behaviours towards others (Ringrose et al, 2012).
Children and young people who abuse their brothers or sisters may be motivated by jealousy or anger (Yates et al, 2012).
Power is an important factor in sexual abuse. Erooga and Masson (2006) built on the work of Finkelhor and Browne (1985) to explain how a child’s early powerlessness during their own abuse can lead to them needing to dominate others.