A Guide for Families
A child told you something. Now what?
You do not need proof. You do not need to be certain. You need to know what to do in the next few hours, and what happens after that. This page is that, in plain language.
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If the child who told you is not your own
You are a teacher, a coach, a neighbor, an aunt, a friend's parent. Nearly everything on this page still applies, and the first hour is exactly the same. Three things work differently for you.
You may have to give your name
Members of the public can report anonymously. School staff, health and mental health professionals, child care workers, and law enforcement must identify themselves to the hotline.
Telling a supervisor is not reporting
In Florida the duty sits with the person who holds the suspicion. If you tell an administrator and no call is made, the obligation has not been met.
Do not contact the family first
Unless your protocol specifically directs it, let the hotline and the investigator decide when and how a family is told. Advance notice can end an investigation.
Full detail on Florida law, reporting when the concern is a colleague, and what protects you from retaliation.
Mandated reportingStart Here
The first hour
You do not have to say the perfect thing. You have to do a small number of things right, and avoid a small number of things that cause real damage.
Before anything else: your face
Whatever you are feeling, keep your expression calm. A child reads your reaction and decides from it whether telling you was safe. Shock, disgust, anger, or tears can land on a child as I have ruined something. You can fall apart later, and you should, somewhere else.
- Believe them, out loud.
I believe you.
Those three words matter more than anything else you will say today. - Thank them.
I'm so glad you told me.
Telling took more courage than you can see. - Take the blame off them.
This is not your fault. You did nothing wrong.
Say it even if they have not said they feel guilty. Most do. Most never say so. - Tell them what happens next.
I'm going to get help from people whose job is keeping kids safe. I'm not going anywhere.
- Let them stop. Whatever they offer is enough. A fragment is enough to call the hotline.
- Write down their exact words. As soon as you can step away, write what your child said in quotation marks, and what you asked. Add the date and time. Their words, not your interpretation.
- Do not interview your child. No
who
, nohow many times
, nowhere were his hands
. Investigators are trained to ask in ways that do not harm a child and do not damage a case. A well-meaning parent's questions can undo both. - Do not promise secrecy. If your child asks you not to tell, do not lie. Tell them the truth about what you have to do to keep them safe.
- Do not confront the person. Not a call, not a text, not a conversation at the kitchen table. It gives them time, it gives them a story, and it puts pressure straight back onto your child.
- Do not wait for more evidence. That is not your job, and waiting is how years go by.
- Do not ask your child to repeat it to relatives, to prove anything, or to convince anyone.
If this may have happened in the last few days
Call the Florida Abuse Hotline right away and say how recently you believe it happened. If it occurred within roughly the last three to four days, there may be physical evidence.
Do not bathe your child, wash their clothes or bedding, or clean anything up until you have spoken to the hotline or law enforcement and asked what they need. If your child needs medical care, say what happened when you arrive so the right exam is done.
Reporting
You do not have to be sure
This is where most families stop. They believe reporting requires certainty, and they are terrified of being wrong about someone they love. It does not, and you are not the one deciding.
Everyone is a mandated reporter
In Florida this is not limited to teachers, doctors, and clergy. It includes you.
Suspicion is the standard
Reasonable cause to suspect. Not proof, not certainty, and not something you have to prove first.
You are protected
Anyone who reports in good faith has immunity from civil and criminal liability.
Not reporting is a crime
So is preventing someone else from reporting. If a relative is telling you not to call, that is what they are asking of you.
What Florida law actually says
- Under section 39.201, Florida Statutes, any person who knows or has reasonable cause to suspect that a child is abused must report it immediately to the central abuse hotline. The statute separately requires a report from anyone who suspects a child is the victim of sexual abuse or juvenile sexual abuse.
- Members of the general public may report anonymously if they choose.
- Section 39.205 provides immunity from civil and criminal liability for reports made in good faith.
- Knowingly and willfully failing to report, or knowingly preventing another person from reporting, is a felony of the third degree.
Make the call
1-800-962-2873Florida Abuse Hotline · 24 hours a day · also 1-800-96-ABUSE
Online at reportabuse.dcf.state.fl.us · If your child is in immediate danger, call 911 first.
Have ready what you can
- Your child's name, date of birth, and where they are right now
- Your address or another way to locate your family
- The name of the person you are concerned about and their relationship to your child
- What you were told, in your child's words
- How recently you believe it happened
- Whether photographs or recordings may exist
You will not have all of this. Report anyway. "I don't know" is a complete answer, and an incomplete report is far better than no report.
The Part Nobody Prepares You For
What you will hear in the days after
Within hours of the family finding out, the pressure starts. It rarely sounds like a threat. It usually sounds like reason, or love, or grief. Knowing the shape of it in advance makes it much easier to hold your ground.
“Let's keep this in the family. We can handle it ourselves.”
What it actually is
A request to move the decision away from the only people who can investigate it or stop it. Families cannot assess risk to other children, and cannot enforce anything.
“You're going to destroy this family.”
What it actually is
Placing responsibility for the family's pain on you, rather than on what was done to a child. The harm came first. Reporting is the response to it.
“I'll stay away. I'll never come around again. You don't need to report it.”
What it actually is
An offer to trade a child's safety for silence. It also leaves the person free to be near other children, in other families, with no one warned.
“If you report this, there won't be anything left of me.”
What it actually is
Frightening, and not yours to resolve. It is also one of the most common things said at this moment. Make the report. Then, if you believe someone is at risk, call 988 or 911 for them. You are allowed to do both.
“The child misunderstood.” “Kids make things up.”
What it actually is
Children very rarely fabricate sexual abuse. What they far more often do is delay telling, tell only part of it, or take it back when the adults around them get upset.
“He's attracted to women. He has a wife. It's not possible.”
What it actually is
One of the most common and most mistaken beliefs about abuse. Sexual abuse of children is driven by access and opportunity, not adult sexual orientation. Who someone dates tells you nothing about the risk they pose to a child.
“But she loves him. She hugs him. She isn't afraid of him.”
What it actually is
Almost exactly what you would expect. Most children who are abused are abused by someone they are attached to and want to please. Affection and fear coexist in the same child, easily.
“This supposedly happened two years ago. Why now?”
What it actually is
Delayed disclosure is the rule, not the exception. Children tell when they finally feel safe enough, or old enough, or when something happens that makes it impossible to keep holding.
“You need to be a hundred percent sure before you ruin his life.”
What it actually is
Certainty is not the standard, and it is not available to you. Reasonable suspicion is the standard, and you have it.
One line to have ready
You will be asked, repeatedly, to explain and defend yourself. You don't have to. Pick one sentence and use it every time.
“I'm not going to discuss the details. There's an open investigation, and my focus is on my child.”
The Process
What happens after you call
Families are blindsided less by the process itself than by how slow and how uncertain it is. Here is a realistic picture.
The call · minutes
A counselor takes your report
They will take your information and decide whether it meets the criteria to open a protective investigation. They may ask things you do not know. "I don't know" is a completely acceptable answer.
Reports of sexual abuse also go to law enforcement.
Within about an hour
The report reaches an investigator
An accepted report is sent to the local investigation office, generally within an hour. An investigator responds immediately if a child is at imminent risk of harm, and otherwise within 24 hours.
Days to a few weeks
The interview
Your child will likely be interviewed once, by a specially trained forensic interviewer, while the investigator and law enforcement observe. This is deliberate. It exists so your child tells it one time instead of five.
In Palm Beach County this work is done through Camelot Community Care's Child Protection Team – Palm Beach, on Greenwood Avenue in West Palm Beach. You will not arrange it; the investigator schedules it and contacts you.
You will most likely wait in another room. That is not a sign anyone doubts you. It is so no one can later argue you influenced what your child said.
How to prepare your child: “We're going to a place where you'll talk to someone whose whole job is listening to kids. All you have to do is tell the truth. You're not in trouble, and I'll be right here.”
Do not rehearse with them. Do not tell them what to say.
If offered
The medical exam
An exam may be offered. Know this in advance: an exam often finds no physical signs of sexual abuse. That does not mean it did not happen, and it does not mean your child was not believed.
Weeks to months
The waiting
This is the longest and hardest part, and the part almost no one is warned about. See below for what to expect.
What to expect while you wait
- It will take longer than you think. Weeks, often months. Criminal cases run longer still.
- You may be told very little. Investigations are confidential, including from you at times. Silence is not evidence that nothing is happening.
- Charges may never be filed. That is a decision about evidence and provability. It is not a ruling that your child lied.
- Your child may take it back. Recantation is common, and it is most common when a child can feel the family coming apart. It is not proof the disclosure was false. Keep believing them.
Other Doorways
When it reaches you a different way
Roughly four in ten children who tell anyone tell a friend rather than an adult. Many families learn about abuse secondhand, and those situations get talked out of existence far more often than direct disclosures do. The obligation is the same.
Your child tells you about another child
Report it. You are not required to talk to the other family first, and in most cases you should not, because it can put that child in immediate danger. Call the hotline and say it came to you through your own child. Then tell your child they did the right thing, because they will be worried they betrayed a friend.
Another parent tells you about your child
Take it seriously even if your child denies it when you ask. Denial in that moment is extremely common and is not evidence of anything. Report, and let the trained people ask the questions.
A school reported it, and that is how you found out
Your first feeling may be anger that no one called you first. Florida law puts the duty to report on the person who has the concern, and it is often better for the child that the report came from outside the family. Direct your energy at supporting your child, not at the school.
A Harder Version
If the person is another child
A large share of child sexual abuse is committed by older or more powerful children rather than adults. A sibling. A cousin. A neighbor's teenager. Families find this even harder to report, because it feels like choosing between two children.
You are not choosing. Both children need help, and only reporting gets it.
- It is reportable. Florida law covers abuse by a juvenile, and these reports are routed accordingly.
- Separate them now. If both children live in your home, they cannot share a room or be alone together while this is sorted out. This is not a punishment, and you can say so plainly to both.
- You are not the one who decides. Age difference, power, coercion, and secrecy are what distinguish abuse from developmentally expected curiosity. Trained investigators make that call, not you.
- Treatment works. Children with sexual behavior problems respond to treatment substantially better than adults do. Reporting early is genuinely the better outcome for the child who caused harm, not only for the one who was harmed.
- Get both children their own therapists. Not the same one.
Your Child
What your child needs most is you
The finding that should carry you
Across decades of research, the strongest predictor of how a child recovers from sexual abuse is not whether the case is prosecuted, and not how severe the abuse was. It is whether the child has at least one adult who believes them and stays.
You cannot control the investigation. You can control that.
Say these out loud, more than once
“I believe you.”
“It was not your fault.”
“My job is to keep you safe, and I am doing it.”
“You can talk to me about this if and when you're ready. I am here to listen.”
Then keep ordinary life going. School, bedtime, soccer, birthdays, driver's ed. Normal is not denial. For a child whose world just tilted, normal is evidence that they are still safe.
You were probably groomed too
People who abuse children rarely focus only on the child. If they are a family member or someone you know well, they already have unquestioned trust with the whole family. Access to a child is what they need, and trust is how access is granted. They are helpful. Maybe they babysit. They are wonderful with kids. They are often the one everybody likes.
So when you think there is no way he would do this, that feeling is real, and it is also the intended result of years of effort. The family's trust should not be used to decide whether abuse occurred.
This is also why the guilt hits so hard afterward. You did not miss something obvious. You were shown something else on purpose.
Adversity is not the whole story
This is the part of the science that gets the least attention. Positive experiences shape a child too, and they are not cancelled out by what happened.
Every one of those is inside your reach right now. That is what Center for Child Counseling means by Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences, and it is why we tell parents the truth about how much rests on them without apologizing for it.
You
You need support too
Parents and caregivers in this position carry something heavy and largely unrecognized. Grief for the child. Guilt for not seeing it sooner. Rage. And sometimes real love for the person accused, which is confusing and not shameful.
The family may split, and that is not your failure
Be ready for this, because it is the part that grinds people down. Some of the people you love will not believe your child. Some will be angrier at you for reporting than at what was done. You may be called dramatic, disloyal, or worse. Holidays will change. You may lose relationships permanently, including ones you expected to keep.
You are not required to change anyone's mind. You are not required to hold the family together. Those are not the same job as protecting a child, and trying to do all three at once is what exhausts people into silence.
Find one or two people who are fully supportive of you, and let the rest be what it is for now.
Taking care of yourself
- Get your own therapist. This is not indulgent. A caregiver who is regulated is the single most useful thing in the house.
- If you are in crisis, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
- If the person accused is your partner, you are also facing decisions about housing, money, and custody. Talk to an attorney and ask about a victim advocate.
- Eat, sleep, and let people bring you food. This is a months-long stretch, not a week.
If your teenager does not want you to report
Older children often disclose and then immediately ask you not to do anything. They are afraid of the fallout, and their concerns are valid. This is one of the few times you have to override your child, and you can do it with respect.
- Be honest that you are going to make the call, and why. Do not pretend the decision is theirs when it isn't.
- Give them control over what you can. Whether they are in the room when you call. Who gets told, and when.
- Name what they are afraid of instead of arguing them out of it.
- Expect anger at you, possibly for a while. It is not a sign you did the wrong thing.
Numbers to keep
Immediate danger
911
Free Guide for Families
When It's Someone You Love
Almost everything written about preventing child sexual abuse is written for children. Almost nothing is written for the adult in the hardest version of the moment, when the person a child names is inside the family.
- What to do, and not do, in the first hour
- Why you do not need proof to report
- What relatives will say, and what it actually is
- What happens after you call, step by step
- When the person is another child
- How to hold a family that may split
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Children recover. Families do too.
Center for Child Counseling provides therapy for children and families in Palm Beach County, including support for the caregiver carrying this. You do not have to wait for the investigation to finish to start.
This page is general education, not legal or clinical advice, and it is not a substitute for the guidance of an attorney, a physician, or a licensed therapist working with your family. If you are unsure whether to report, call the Florida Abuse Hotline and describe what you know. That is what it is there for.