"...the key for a better and more productive life of the future adult…lies in the programming of our children from their earliest days."
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Pedophiles and Your Child by Peter H. Schmedding Trafford Publishing
book review by Priscilla Estes
Schmedding, a long-time children's advocate and counselor, tackles the nasty subject of pedophilia with caution, sensitivity, and originality. His goals are to show how inappropriate attitudes can create pedophiles, to explore the balance between protecting a child and letting him experience freedom, and to look into the mind of offenders. Schmedding believes that pedophiles are usually made, not born. Pedophiles can be created when children are taught that sex and genitals are dirty or shameful; when a child is isolated emotionally and made to feel worthless; and when a child must resort to porn for answers to sexual questions.
The last few pages of this short book give guidelines for parents on how to protect a child from sexual predators yet not overprotect him from life. He shares suggestions on how to separate the charmers from the harmers and how to teach a child about physical boundaries. Schmedding repeatedly states he does not condone pedophilia and yet manages to draw the reader into a sympathetic view with statements such as, "We will never know how many of our world's children have been actually raised to become pedophiles." As for "born pedophiles," he supports lifelong incarceration.
Readers may not agree with Schmedding's perspectives, may not like his rambling delivery and may think the book too short to achieve his stated goals. This book remains a rational and welcome discussion about the prevention of acts of pedophilia in a hypervigilant era where the typical pedophile molests 117 children on average.