Parenting books & Guides

By: Mel Langston, PhD

The Survival Guide is especially for mothers of sexually abused children (MOSAC). The Guide provides practical answers, offers guidance through the post-disclosure crisis, assists mothers in understanding themselves and their child, presents options for effectively navigating the very difficult path on which a mother finds herself, and offers sensible strategies for communicating belief, support and protection and moving towards recovery and resilience. 

 This booklet gives basic information about how the legal system responds to allegations of child sexual abuse. It is important that you ask questions and find help as you and your child travel through this process. 

By: Nicole Braddock Bromley

Hush exposes the harsh realities of childhood abuse, explains the pain it causes, examines the false beliefs it creates, and empowers survivors to begin a personal journey toward healing by breaking the silence. 

By: Dr. Jennifer Y. Levy-Peck 

 As the parent or caregiver of a child who has suffered abuse, you will find useful information and valuable resources to help your child to heal. Healing The Harm Done will help you to deal with your own reactions and concerns as well.  

By: Dr. Janina Fisher

 Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma, shows how the legacy of symptoms helped trauma survivors survive and offers:

step-by-step strategies, simple diagrams that make sense of the confusing feelings and physical reactions survivors experience, worksheets to practice the skills that bring relief and ultimately healing

By: Dr. R. Timothy Kearney

What help should we seek? What support can we offer? What healing is possible? In this warm and hopeful book, R. Timothy Kearney shows how healing, justice, forgiveness, restoration and protection can come through God's people in the Christian community.

By: Brad Watts

Sibling Sexual Abuse walks the reader through the journey from the shocking disclosure of sexual abuse within the family and describes what steps can be taken in order for families to heal. Sibling Sexual Abuse also addresses why it is important for communities to get involved and participate in a national discourse about the dangers of sibling sexual abuse and what can be done to support survivors and families and how they can heal from such a shattering and painful event. 

By: Stop It Now! 

   It can be hard to tell the difference between "normal" sexual behaviors and behaviors that are signs that a child may be developing a problem. Download the PDF here.

By: Rebecca Street 

  You Can Help offers concrete tools to family and friends who wish to participate in the healing process of someone who has been sexually victimized.  

By: Karen E. Fennel

 A powerful tool for individuals, families, and therapists faced with the challenge of healing after a childhood sexual abuse. Reading as much like a novel as a therapeutic guide, the author, whose son was a victim of sexual abuse, offers alternating viewpoints.

By: Katheryn Brohl & Joyce Case Potter

 Using everyday language, the authors provide information, comfort, and advice on how to put the pieces back together again after a child has been sexually molested. 

By: Bessel Van der Kolk, MD

 Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent more than three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments - from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga - that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity.  

By: Bessel Van der Kolk, MD

 The approaches in this workbook are meant to help every individual recover, rebound and live their lives meaningfully and happily. 

By: Dr Deborah Inman

 In this comprehensive guidebook, Dr. Inman shares wisdom and tips that will help childhood sexual abuse victims and their support systems navigate through the trauma and ultimately toward healing.

By: Cynthia L. Mather

A guide to recovering from incest and sexual abuse for teenagers, their friends, and their families.

By: Lorraine Nilon

 Only through understanding pedophilia can we protect our children or aid in the recovery of those silently trying to navigate the lingering effects of their history. Empowering as it helps you understand the complexities of being the abused and reinforces the fact that it is never the victim’s fault.

By: Samantha Leonard

 Groomed is for survivors looking for a voice, young families seeking advice, and guardians wanting to learn. The book's purpose is to educate, inspire, and change the culture around sexual violence. 

By: Judith Herman, MD

 Trauma and Recovery is revered as the seminal text on understanding trauma survivors and is essential to understand how we heal and are healed.

Available on Audible

By: Susan Sophie Bierker, MSW

A skills guide on how to detect, prevent, and heal for thrivers, therapists, parents, and teachers.

By: Mishondy Wright-Brown

 A guide on how to effectively approach this topic with your children and how to react if they have encountered molestation, warning signs that point to child grooming or a possible occurrence, and examples of age appropriate conversations you can have with your children. 

By: Carol-Beth Scott

 When you read how Carol-Beth Scott and her family survived and now thrive after sexual assault, you’ll know you aren’t alone. You’ll know you don’t have to be destroyed because she shows you step-by-step how to overcome.  

By: Erin Carpenter, LCSW

 Life, Reinvented brings both inspiration and practical tools to survivors of sexual assault or childhood sexual abuse and their friends, family members, and spouses.  

By: Jennifer Y. Levy-Peck, PhD

 Healing The Harm Done will help you to deal with your own reactions and concerns after the sexual assault of your child. The book gives practical advice on handling your child's behaviors and emotions and will guide you in finding appropriate professional help if needed.  

By: Robert B. Longley

 The first seven days after a child discloses their sexual abuse can be traumatic for the child and the parents. This short parenting guide and resource listing will give you the immediate things you need to know about your child's sexual abuse during that first week.  

By: Gerald Deskin, PhD, MFCC & Greg Stocker, MA, MFCC

 Less verbal than adults, young children may have fears and stress after a disaster, unknown to their parents or caretakers. Family and child therapists Gerald Deskin and Greg Steckler describe the usual symptoms and behaviors associated with catastrophic events and offer practical examples for helping children cope at such a time.  

By: Jennie Lynn Owens

   You want so much to help your child, but you are at the end of your own rope. You feel guilty that sometimes you want to just quit. What can you do — how can you make it through the day — how can you help your child while also taking care of yourself?   

By: Stephen Levine

 A guide to healing meditation, from revered teacher Stephen Levine. Drawing on years of first-hand experience working with the chronically ill, here Levine presents original techniques for working with pain and grief. 

By: Beverly Engel, MFCC

 As a trained therapist and sufferer of sexual abuse herself, Beverly Engel knows that there is probably no trauma a child can suffer that makes her or him feel more alone than sexual abuse. This helpful book offers hope for recovery with exercises, visualizations, and techniques that support you through a seven-step program .

By:  Curtis Holmes and Sharon A. McGee 

 When a child has experienced sexual abuse, he or she may struggle with low self-esteem and find it difficult to trust others. Though the mental damage from such abuse is significant, it can be substantially reversed if a caring adult is willing to dedicate a few minutes each day to helping the child heal. This book contains forty compassionate activities kids who have suffered abuse can do to raise their self-esteem, establish boundaries, and identify people they can trust. 

By: Sandy K. Wurtele, Ph.D. and Feather Berkower, MSW

This is quite possibly the most important book you will ever read as a parent and will empower you with information on:

• Age-appropriate sexual development,
• Body-safety rules,
• Sample language for talking with children and teens about body-safety,
• Screening questions for caregivers,
• how to handle CSA disclosure 

By Peter A. Levine, PhD

 Based on the idea that trauma is neither a disease nor a disorder but rather an injury caused by fright, helplessness, and loss that can be healed by engaging our innate capacity to self-regulate high states of arousal and intense emotions. Enriched with a coherent theoretical framework and compelling case examples, the book elegantly blends the latest findings in biology, neuroscience, and body-oriented psychotherapy to show that when we bring together animal instinct and reason, we can become more whole human beings. 

By: Kevin McNeil

TALK = Teach All Little Kids

 Finally, a great book that helps parents and caregivers with a very difficult subject; abuse. 

By: Kevin McNeil

In this book, Veteran Detective, Kevin McNeil, explains in detail what each parent of an abuse victim should expect during a

child sexual abuse investigation.

He gives explanations of each person involved in the investigation and also explains some behaviors child abuse victims exhibit.

By: Kevin McNeil

 Detective Kevin McNeil is a twenty-year veteran who spent twelve years of his career investigating child abuse cases. In this informative workbook, Detective McNeil uses his experience to help those involved in abuse cases to make solid cases for trial. 

By: Alan W. McEvoy, Jeff D. Brookings, Debbie Rollo

 One of the only books yet published to advise people who are close to a male rape victim about how to assist him in recovering from the experience.  

By: Younique Foundation

 1. Effects of Sexual Abuse Trauma

2. Trauma and the Brain 

3. 5 Strategies to Reclaim Hope 

4. What Can I Do and Say to Help? 

5. Resources for Family Members or Caregivers of Sexual Abuse Survivors 

By: Blue Knot Foundation

Factsheet for family and friends of people who have experience childhood trauma (including abuse) and understanding trauma-informed responses.

by: Anne Rhodes - Davis

In searching for support for her children and herself, the author talked to child sexual abuse professionals and many "other mothers" whose children had been abused. She found that her family's experiences were shared by many other families and that they all felt isolated and alone. They shared many dilemmas, questions, feelings of shock, horror, fear, guilt, grief and panic, and the difficulties of how to tell friends and family.