My Adult Child Sexually Abused Their Sibling when They Were Kids: What Do I Say to the Child Who was Responsible?

Since discovering that I was a parent of sibling sexual trauma, I’ve engaged in plenty of difficult conversations. The first time speaking to my child, after I learned they had harmed their sibling, was one of the hardest. It’s a moment no parent is prepared to face. 

If you are facing a moment like this, read on. But first, take a few deep breaths. Know you are not alone (see links below). Parents who have walked this road before generally agree: Taking a bit of time to turn the panic down a notch or two will bring on much-needed clearer thinking. The words below won’t give you a guaranteed “right” answer, but they may guide you to some choices that will work for you. 

If you have already confronted your adult child, this blog is for you as well. It may shed light on something you can still say or do that will be helpful. You may have responded differently, and if you are satisfied with your response, that is what matters. On the other hand, you may regret how you reacted, or something you said. Many parents blurt out words that make no sense, or take actions that they later regret. It is likely you were so overwhelmed with anger, shock, or other emotions that your thinking brain was bypassed altogether. You can’t re-do that moment, but you can choose how to approach your child going forward.

If you are striving to support a parent in this situation, whether personally or professionally, thank you so much for seeking out this topic and reading. Few people who haven’t faced this for themselves are likely to have even considered this predicament. Your listening ear and presence may be the best things you can give, and they do make a difference. 

One of the biggest reasons that there is no clear “right” way to respond, is that there are so many factors to weigh. Consider just some basics:

• How did the parent find out? Does this adult child realize that the parent knows? 

• What are the wishes and choices of the sibling who was sexually harmed or abused? Do they want the parent to confront their sibling, or hide that they know? Do they want the behavior reported to authorities and prosecuted, or not?

• Is this child currently living independently? Is the child dependent on the parent for education, health insurance, or other support? Do they live nearby or far away? 

• Does the adult child have a family? If so, does the parent want to maintain a relationship with the grandchildren? Are there any concerns for the safety of those grandchildren, or other children in the family? 

• What is this adult child’s current behavior toward their siblings, parents, and others in their lives? Are they still behaving in any type of abusive or risky manner? 

• If the child has been confronted as an adult about their past harmful sexual behavior, how did they react? Did they admit to all, admit to some, or deny it all? Did they show remorse and offer to make amends? Did they try to minimize, make excuses, or turn the blame on their sibling (DARVO)? 

• What are the parent’s emotional reactions? What type of relationship have they had with the adult child who is responsible? What are the parent’s wishes for their relationship with this child going forward? 

• As far as the parent knows, what kind of sexual behavior occurred? What age did it start, how long did it last, and how or why did it end? 

• Does the parent have any knowledge or suspicion that the child who sexually harmed their sibling was also sexually violated by someone else? (Note: This factor does not affect the extent of trauma to their sibling, or how their sibling should handle it. But it is a realistic circumstance for parents to consider in their response.)

Simply reading through all those possibilities may feel overwhelming. Actually facing them, in the midst of the disorienting storm of emotions that comes with facing this news, is even more complex. With all these factors to sort out, is there anything that all parents of a child who sexually abused a sibling have in common? 

It seems safe to say that all parents will find this complicated, awkward, difficult, and unpredictable. With very few exceptions, both the parents and their adult child will feel extreme fear and shame. Conversations about past harmful sibling sexual behavior will be among the most challenging of their entire lives. 

If you are a parent who has read this far, it is likely that you still carry some level of love and concern for your child, now an adult, no matter what their behavior has been, past or present. And that is OK! Your love and concern for one child does not diminish your love and concern for any other child. Period. It is also normal to feel extreme anger, disgust, betrayal, a desire for revenge, a feeling of unreality, shock, or numbness. That is OK too. 

No matter where you are in your journey, any of the following messages that are true for you are among those that would be appropriate to convey to your adult child:

• I love you, you are my child, and nothing will ever change that.

• I believe your sibling.

• I am supporting your sibling in their healing process. 

• You need to take responsibility for your actions, past, present, and future.

• I will support your own healing in any way I am able, that you desire. 

• I need to set the following boundaries with you going forward…

Alongside the messages above, it is important to prioritize the wishes of the sibling who was harmed as a child. This is particularly important on issues affecting boundaries between the siblings, what kind of information the parents can convey from one sibling to the other, who is present during family gatherings, or which images the parents share on social media. Some siblings find that their ability to heal is negatively affected by contact with their sibling, having parents mention the sibling, or seeing photos of that sibling. As a parent, it is crucial to respect this. The child’s wishes may change over time, or they may not; either is normal. Expecting the child responsible for the harm to respect these wishes is part of accepting the natural consequences of their actions, and prioritizing their sibling’s needs going forward.

If you are the parent of both a child who was abused, and the one who abused them in their own youth, you are likely to face many agonizing decisions. They may have no clear right answers and no good options, at least in the short-term. You may face criticism from those who have never faced anything of this nature. Do your best to not take it personally. The best you can do is the best you can do. 

You have already taken the important step of seeking ideas and information, seeking to understand and care for your children in any way you are able. Seeking support is another important step. Many parents of sibling sexual trauma feel isolated and humiliated. This isn’t the type of thing you can share casually or widely. The journey ahead will not be easy or linear, but you do not have to go through this alone. Start here for links to helplines, support groups, and much more: https://www.siblingsexualtrauma.com/parents  

We're Not Alone!

I began writing the content for siblingsexualtrauma.com nearly four years ago. As far as I knew, it was the only site on the web specifically devoted to facing sibling sexual trauma or abuse. That's why I wrote it; I wanted to share the information I had gleaned and the lessons I had learned with those who came after me. I expected that it wouldn't always be the only website on the topic. And now I know that to be true.

By the time the women of 5WAVES came together and got siblingsexualtrauma.com published online, we had already connected with SSA survivor Nancy Morris and discovered her pre-existing site: SiblingsToo.com. This site points users to SiblingsToo's real gold mine of information and connection: the SiblingsToo Podcast and SiblingsToo Day event videos. It also includes a blog, a journaling tool, and more.

In 2022 the UK Home Office's Sibling Sexual Abuse Project launched https://siblingsexualabusesupport.org/ This site focuses on the needs of adult survivors of sibling sexual abuse. It includes a private community forum, a blog, information and links to support resources. Some of the 5WAVES cofounders were involved in the steering group that developed this site.

More recently, survivor Colleen Mullowney launched https://www.sstaaware.org/. Her goal is to bring awareness to sibling sexual trauma and abuse, through the stories of survivors, and presentations aimed at university students--those who are studying to enter public service fields, those who are dealing with history of sibling sexual abuse in their own family, and those who will be more aware in their personal parenting.

Surviving Sibling Intimate Harm, https://www.siblingintimateharm.com/, is the latest site to come to our awareness. It is the start of a Canadian survivor's effort to reach other survivors with support, counseling, and community.

There are also a number of websites with a connection to personal books and memoirs. They also include blogs, extra content, and links to resources: https://aliceperle.com.au/, https://notchildsplay.com/, https://www.jane-epstein.com, https://dianetarantini.com/, https://www.philagoldstein.com/resources-for-survivors (including content for male survivors) and https://healingfromchronicpain.com/ (for those whose trauma manifests in physical pain).

It is notable that most of these efforts were undertaken, or at least begun, without any awareness of the others' existence. This is evidenced by the diverse language used to describe our experiences: "brother-sister incest," "sibling intimate harm," "sibling sexual trauma," "sibling sexual abuse." The topic was so hidden, and we were each so isolated, that we had to make up our own language to talk about it.

Most likely, there are others presently writing, creating, and trying to speak out, of which we are unaware, and who have not discovered us. Yet, with each voice, each story, each mention, the reality of sibling sexual abuse is slowly emerging from the shadows.

An Introduction to Risa Shaw and Not Child's Play

Brandy: This blog introduces Risa Shaw: Sibling Sexual Abuse Survivor, Educator, Author, Artist, and Activist. In the year 2000, a generation before 5WAVES, Jane’s TEDx Talk, and the SiblingsToo podcast, Risa Shaw self-published the book Not Child’s Play: An Anthology on Brother-Sister Incest (reprinted with additional content in 2023 in a 2nd edition, now available to order). It was a 13 year stop-and-go effort, ultimately featuring 56 pieces of visual and written art created by 35 female survivors. How did she do it, before #MeToo, without the internet…and what did action figures have to do with it? Why did she publish a second edition 23 years later? Read on to hear Risa’s account, as told to Brandy & 5WAVES.

Risa: It was 1984. I was 24 years old, heading back to the Midwest (US) where I would see my entire family. I knew I had to tell them about the abuse. After letting my brother know I was about to tell the rest of my family, he begged me not to say anything. But I did tell them, one by one. (Read more about Risa's disclosures in the Preface to the second edition and in “Footsteps on the Stairs” in her book.)

Disclosure to my family was a huge decision and step for me. At the time my brother admitted to some of what he had done, but not all of it. Each of my three parents and other siblings said they believed me, and yet in large part there was no real support or accountability. As I was telling my mom, she stopped me, told me she believed me, and told me she just couldn’t hear any more. I thought she and I would never talk about the abuse again, but she ended up being the most constant support to me. She told me she could talk about the abuse and its effects in bits so sometimes our conversations were short. But they were consistent and she stayed with me. Many of my family members have not shown they are able and/or willing to accept and deal with the consequences of the abuse, not only as it affects me but as it affects the entire family. That continues to be hard for me and it impacts our relationships. Though it may be futile, I’m not sure I’ll ever give up hoping for accountability and repair in my family. 

I knew I needed more support than I would get from my family and I really wanted to hear the voices of other women who had suffered sexual abuse from their own brothers. I knew they were out there. I read everything I could find on incest, but found no mention of brother-sister incest. (To be clear, boys are also abused by their siblings, and girls are sometimes the abusers. But this was the 1980s when no one was talking about sexual assault, and it was the only language I had.) I needed to hear other peoples’ stories and started talking about collecting them for an anthology. Once I began, I said I would be happy to stop my project/book if someone else published first. No one ever did. So, by word of mouth, and posting flyers in coffee shops and bookstores, we invited survivors to mail their stories to a P.O. Box. I received hundreds of contributions. We were finding one another! 

Incest Survivor Action Girl: Bones, age 5

One day a friend and I were joking about needing incest survivor action figures to show strength and protect others. The next day she showed up with a box of not-so-gently-used Barbies, along with clay, cloth, and other materials. That was the start of several gatherings where we created the Incest Survivor Action Figures. We made six of them! We gave each her own superpower, name, age and backstory. We had no idea how badly we needed them! They are featured on the cover as well as in the book. They are fierce! 

I collected stories and worked on the project on and off for years. I started looking for a publisher, but no one would consider a book on this subject. I was determined that this book was going to be published! So I would have to self-publish. There was no GoFundMe in the 1990s, but it was still a crowd-funded effort; some of the contributors had skills they offered, friends gave money, helped edit, and distributed the book. Finally, after 13 years, in the fall of 2000, I had 3000 copies printed! Then I set about trying to get them into people’s hands. 

Some mainstream bookstores stocked the book, but most people didn’t know about it. I found my niche in women’s bookstores, by word of mouth and by doing readings in (mostly) feminist spaces. A writer for the AP (Associated Press) learned about the book and wrote a piece that appeared in nearly 70 small-medium size newspapers nationwide. Suddenly, I was getting letters from survivors (and some family members) from all over the U.S. They were seeing for the first time their own experience being recognized, named, and written about. This was huge. 

By 2014 all the copies were in people’s hands and homes. Yet requests for the book continued. When I retired, I went to work on publishing a second edition. Simply writing the new preface took over a year, in large part because I wrote a “very nice and informative” first version, and then decided that the preface to the new edition needed to be my story. I love that preface and what I wrote. I love it for its power and clarity. I love it for putting my courage and resilience on paper and gifting it to those who read it.

It is my hope that the book will reach others who need it: survivors of sibling sexual abuse/incest who finally see writings and art they can relate to; family members, bystanders, professionals, and people who think they don’t need this book or need to know about this topic. If we are going to heal and prevent more children from being harmed and harming others, everyone needs to think about and talk about sibling sexual abuse. The greatest measure of healing for me has been speaking out and providing a space for others to speak out, both through the process of birthing this book and creating tender, courageous community over the years.

Action Figure: Celtic Girl, age 14

Brandy: A lot has changed since 1987, but there is plenty that has not changed. Risa found little to no mention of sibling incest in the books she read, so she had to write her own book. Twenty years later, I found little to no mention of sibling incest on the internet, so I began writing siblingsexualtrauma.com. The mainstream press is still reluctant to touch the subject of sibling sexual abuse. But we can now create and share podcasts, webinars, blogs, videos, and online support tools and groups. A few press outlets – particularly in the UK – are daring to dip their toes into the subject. The second edition of Risa’s book is yet another wave in an incoming tide of awareness and truth-telling by survivors of sibling incest. You can get Risa’s book and stickers (her art), and see resources, events and media coverage at www.notchildsplay.com.