There are many good teachers in public and private schools. There are also many bad teachers. Debra Lafave, the latest schoolteacher to molest a young student talks about the act as if she was a prostitute with a John, not a teacher with a student, saying to Matt Lauer, “He wanted it, so I gave it to him”. In Pennsylvania “A Hampden Township family has sued Cumberland Valley School District and four employees in federal court, claiming their son’s special education plan was mishandled, that teachers were abusive and that other children bullied him.” For me, my abuse was at the hands of a teacher who pinched my cheek and challenged me with the toughest trigonometry questions to see if I “was as smart as I was cute”.

Here are some tips you can use to help protect your child from abusive teachers.

• Keep an eye on your kids: I have to ask the parents of the 13 and 14-year-old boys who are making babies with their twenty something teachers, where they were during the offense. Many people go out of their way to spend as many hours as possible with their preschool children…What about teenagers? I believe kids these with adult bodies and children’s minds need even more supervision.

• Have them keep a professional distance: Your child’s teacher should not be your child’s friend. The punishment of being teachers pet is far worse than alienation from other students that was received 20 years ago. Now it means losing their innocence. Your child has no business in the teacher’s car or home.

• Watch their grades: Is there a drastic change in your child’s grades in a particular class. For me, a previously A student, bringing home a D in math should have clued my parents in on the fact that there as a greater problem than the work being difficult. It took a subsequent F and my finally telling what was going on to put a stop to it. Many students, however, say nothing.

• Watch their moods: If you child seems suddenly withdrawn and sullen, something is going on. It may not be student abuse, but it should be looked into. Depressed children are often the targets of unscrupulous adults, so do your best to take care of your child’s emotional health, or someone else will step in and try to fill that void.

While I do not blame parents for the victimization of their children, I do believe that many parents are left with feelings of regret because they know they should have seen the signs and stopped the abuse. If you feel your child is suffering in any way, you need to intervene.