Gateway Touching: A Lesser-Known Form of Sexual Abuse

In my practice, I have the honor of working with remarkable children, teens, adults, and families. I recently began working with a precocious and lovely 11-year-old who is lucky enough to have two unusually supportive and empathic parents. I learn from this child and her family as I help her develop a meaningful narrative about what has happened to her in the not-so-distant past.

This child and her family have asked me to share her story, and I will do so while changing some details so that she remains anonymous. This child and many of her female peers endured repeated touching by a specialty teacher who singled them out to spend recess in his classroom. He stroked their backs as they did their work and guided their hands when they needed no physical guidance. This behavior did not clearly fall under the common perception of sex abuse but was nonetheless harmful, emotionally and physically abusive; it was a form of sex abuse. The children were not aware that anything wrong was occurring until after this teacher died by suicide and then his years of touching and grooming young children surfaced.

My 11-year-old, emotionally generous client, would like others to learn from her experiences.

Here is her story:

"When I was in third grade, my art teacher was not really a big part of my life. But as the time passed, it all changed. Let me tell you how it started. In third grade, it started with my hand. He would direct my hand with his hand on where to put it while I was doing my work. After I learned how to use the brush and he was watching me, he would touch my shoulder. Since I had just started this school one year ago, I was used to being touched by my teachers from kindergarten and first grade, because I was younger then and it was appropriate to do so. This touching by the art teacher continued into fourth grade until he thought he should do more and not just to me, but to my peers as well. He started to stroke our backs. This happened when myself and two other classmates would skip recess to work with him – we spent a lot of recesses with the art teacher. I don’t believe he touched all of these friends who would skip recess with me, but I'm not sure. When the two other classmates were either somewhere else or in the bathroom, he would come and “help” me with my work while touching my lower back. It wasn’t until fifth grade that I knew this wasn’t right. I was coming back from a softball game when my mother told me my art teacher had passed. At the moment, I still didn’t realize that what had happened over the last two years was unacceptable and inappropriate.

"Then the rumors came flying in like lightning. One girl had fessed up to the touching, and then another, and another, and so on. After that, all the parents in the town knew what had happened to the innocent girls. I knew most of my friends had talks with their parents. And when I spoke to my parents, I realized what had really been going on – how it was wrong – and I was broken. It was like someone had been lying to me my whole life. It was hard to deal with it at the moment, but with time I was fully confident with sharing and talking about my feelings. After all that has happened, I want to help others by informing people about subtle touching. To clarify, when I say subtle touch, I mean between it's okay to touch there and it’s definitely not okay to touch there. What my teacher did was touch a part of me that sometimes you touch by accident or you touch that area on purpose, but subtly. I believe if everyone chips in on informing little ones about the subtle touch, then I think we can make a difference."

Consider the bravery of this 11-year-old girl. And, please consider my suggestions about how to stop or prevent people in positions of power from touching unsuspecting children.

1. Cultivate an emotionally safe home where anything can be discussed without judgment and with a lot of support.
2. Stay calm as your child speaks. If you become overly emotional or overwhelmed, you will frighten them. Save your feelings for conversations with your partner, friend, therapist, etc.
3. Talk to your children regularly about their relationships with teachers, coaches, etc., and be on the alert for "special" relationships. They may be special for the wrong reasons.
4. Talk to your children about the inappropriateness of subtle/gentle touching and more egregious touching.
5. Meet with teachers, coaches, and others in positions of frequent contact with your children and trust your intuition about whether they seem to "like" your child too much.