Professor Danielle Myers Frierson, Northend Agent’s
There is a rose that grows through a crack in the sidewalk on Albany and Vine Street, and every summer I wonder how it manages to bloom at all. No one waters it. No one prunes it. It just fights its way toward the sun, the same way this neighborhood has, block by block, generation after generation. That rose is why I write this column. It is a reminder that beautiful things can grow in hard places, but only if somebody is watching over them.
This month, I want to talk about watching over our children.
It is not an easy subject. It was never going to be an easy column to write. But silence has never protected a single child in the history of this city, and I did not come up in the Northend to start being quiet now.
The truth about who does the harm
We were raised to fear the stranger in the car, the shadow at the end of the block. And we should still teach our children to be careful with strangers. But the truth, the one that hurts more to say, is that most children who are harmed are harmed by someone the family already trusts, a relative, a coach, a family friend, someone who has earned their way into the room. That is what makes this so hard to see. The danger rarely looks dangerous. It looks familiar. It looks kind, right up until it isn’t.
Patterns worth knowing
People who mean to harm a child do not usually announce themselves. They build trust slowly. They look for children who seem to be missing attention at home, and they offer to fill that gap. They push for one-on-one time that isn’t quite necessary. They test boundaries in small ways, a joke that goes a little too far, a “secret” between just the two of them, to see who notices and who says nothing. Secrecy is the tool they lean on most. A child who has been taught that some things are simply not talked about is a child who is easier to keep quiet.
Knowing the shape of this behavior is not about making every coach or uncle or family friend a suspect. It is about paying attention to the pattern instead of the person, noticing when someone is working awfully hard to be alone with a child, or awfully hard to be the “cool” adult who doesn’t tell parents things.
What we can actually do I don’t believe in fear for fear’s sake. I believe in preparation. Here is what preparation looks like in a home like the ones on our block:
Talk to your children early and often, in plain language, about their bodies and their right to say no, to anyone, including people they love. A child who has heard “no” modeled at home is a child who knows how to use it.
Keep the lines of communication wide open. Kids tell what they’ve learned is safe to tell. If a child confesses something small and gets punished or dismissed, they learn not to bring the big things either.
Watch for changes, not just words, a child pulling away from an activity they used to love, new fear around a particular person, trouble sleeping, or a sudden secretiveness that was not there before. Children do not always have the language for what happened to them, however, their behavior will usually tell on their behalf.
If a child does tell you something, believe them first and investigate second. The overwhelming majority of children do not lie about this. Our job is to be the safe landing, not another obstacle.
And build a village that actually watches. Know the adults in your children’s lives. Ask questions of programs and coaches and churches about how they screen and supervise. A community that talks openly about this is a community that is much harder to hide inside of.
Reporting
If you suspect a child is being harmed, you do not need certainty to say something. In Connecticut, you can call the Department of Children and Families Careline at 1-800-842-2288, available around the clock, or call 911 if a child is in immediate danger. The national Childhelp hotline, 1-800-422-4453, is also available. You are allowed to be wrong out of caution. You are not allowed to be silent out of doubt.
That rose on Albany and Vine Street does not grow because the sidewalk was kind to it. It grows because it had no other choice, and because, against every odd, nobody paved over it before it broke through. Our children deserve better odds than a crack in the concrete. They deserve grown people who are watching, who are willing to have the uncomfortable conversation, who choose to see the pattern before it becomes a headline.
That is what it means to raise a rose in the Northend. You do not just admire that it bloomed. You ask who was standing guard while it did. If you or someone you know needs support after experiencing abuse, the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence offers a 24-hour hotline at 1-888-999-5545.
Extra Bloom: Protect our children. “Hartford Matters”
