When the Child Believes It Had a Choice

On Coercion, Responsibility, and the False Guilt That Grows in Retrospect

“I could have told someone.”

“I could have run away.”

“I could have resisted.”

“I could have stopped it.”

Such sentences may remain long after sexual abuse. They are spoken by the adult looking back at the child he or she once was. The adult now knows the language, understands what abuse is, recognises that boundaries were violated, and can see possibilities that the child could not see at the time.

In retrospect, the event may appear to have contained more choices than it actually did.

Perhaps the child could have shouted.

Perhaps the child could have said no.

Perhaps the child could have told an adult.

Perhaps the child could have stopped going back to the perpetrator.

Perhaps the child could have avoided the room, the house, or the person.

But what does it really mean to say that a child “could” have done something else?

Is an imaginable action the same as a real possibility of choice?

This question became especially clear in the male focus group that formed part of the material for my doctoral dissertation, A Study of Shame. During the conversation, one participant initially maintained that human beings always have a choice. We choose how we act, even in difficult situations. But when the question was moved from the adult to the child, the claim had to be qualified.

What kind of choice does an eight-year-old child have when an adult stands over him?

What does freedom of choice mean when the child is dependent on the adult, afraid of the consequences, and without confidence that anyone will protect him?

The conversation moved from an abstract question about freedom to the concrete experience of power.

It is within this distinction between imaginable choice and genuine freedom of action that false guilt may begin to loosen its hold.

The Adult Who Judges the Child

When the adult looks back, it is easy to do so from a position the child never had access to.

The adult now knows:

that the acts were abuse
that the adult was responsible
that the child had a right to protection
that threats could have been disclosed
that other adults might have intervened
that the body could react without this meaning consent

The child did not necessarily know any of this.

Even so, the adult may use present knowledge to judge past powerlessness.

Why did I not say no?

Why did I go back?

Why did I not tell anyone?

Why did I act as though nothing had happened?

Why did I behave normally afterwards?

The questions are understandable. But they may contain a hidden injustice. The adult places himself in the child’s situation without surrendering the adult’s language, experience, and overview.

The child is judged as though it were already the adult who would later try to understand what happened.

This is a form of retrospective morality: We place the insight that came afterwards into the moment before that insight existed.

The child is treated as though it should have known what the adult only learned many years later.

Formal Possibility and Real Freedom

It may be true that the child was physically capable of doing something else.

Perhaps the child could have moved towards the door.

Perhaps the child could have opened its mouth.

Perhaps it could have spoken a word.

But freedom cannot be assessed only in terms of the body’s technical possibilities.

A person’s freedom of action is also shaped by:

age
dependence
fear
threats
love and loyalty
experience of being believed or dismissed
understanding of what is happening
the adult’s authority
the possibility of reaching safety
what the child believes will happen afterwards

A door may be unlocked and still feel impossible to open.

A child may have a voice and yet lack the language for what is happening.

Adults may be nearby without the child experiencing any of them as available.

It is therefore possible to have a physical possibility of movement without having a real way out.

In the focus group, John described abuse accompanied by serious threats. He had been told that his sister might be killed if he spoke. He described himself as being backed into a corner. In retrospect, he could say that he “had a choice” and could have told someone. At the same time, his story showed how unreal that choice was for a child who lacked close and protective relationships with his parents.

What the child could theoretically have done was not necessarily something the child could experience as possible.

When the Perpetrator Is Also a Trusted Person

Sexual abuse is not always committed by a stranger who suddenly attacks.

The perpetrator may be:

a parent
a relative
a neighbour
a teacher
a coach
a family friend
someone the child likes
someone who gives attention
someone upon whom the child depends

This makes the situation more difficult to understand.

The child may experience care and violation, closeness and discomfort, attention and fear at the same time. The same person may comfort, give gifts, play, and cause harm.

If the child seeks out the person again, the adult may later interpret this as participation:

I went back.

I must have wanted it.

But the child may have returned to the whole relationship, not to the abusive act in isolation.

The child may have sought care, attention, or belonging. It may have hoped that this time the good would come without the bad. It may have experienced the relationship as something that could not be divided neatly into a safe part and a dangerous part.

The child’s attachment is not evidence of consent.

It is an expression of the child’s dependence and need for relationship.

“I Knew It Was Wrong”

Some children understand that something is wrong. Others do not.

This too may later be used in self-accusation.

If the child knew it was wrong, why did it not stop?

But knowledge is not the same as agency.

A child may know that something is wrong and at the same time:

be afraid
be physically weaker
fear losing the family
believe that it will be blamed
be unsure what “wrong” really means
lack words to explain
have learned that protest is useless
be emotionally attached to the person who causes harm

In the focus group, Knut described how, as a child, he knew that the situation was wrong, even though the physical experience was not always unpleasant. He later blamed himself for this and for not dealing with the consequences earlier. Only as an adult could he place responsibility on the adult who had drawn him into an adult sexual world far too soon.

The child may know and not know at the same time.

It may know that something must be hidden without understanding why.

It may feel unease without being able to name the violation.

It may experience physical pleasure while the relationship, secrecy, and power remain wrong.

The child’s contradictory experience does not make the child responsible. It shows how inadequate the adult world’s clear-cut categories may be.

The Threat Does Not Have to Be Spoken

Some children are directly threatened.

If you tell, someone will die.

The family will fall apart.

No one will believe you.

You will be sent away.

You will go to prison.

But coercion may also be silent.

The child notices:

that the adult becomes angry when resisted
that family stability depends on silence
that a parent cannot cope with more problems
that the perpetrator has high status
that the child has not been believed before
that the child itself is treated as difficult
that sexuality is an unmentionable subject
that adults protect one another

Children learn not only from what is said. They read rooms, voices, and reactions.

They understand early which truths a family can contain and which truths threaten the entire order.

Silence may therefore be produced by a social world, not only by an explicit threat.

When the adult later says, “I chose to remain silent,” it may be more accurate to say:

I understood that there was no safe place to tell.

The Obedient Body

The child’s lack of resistance is often read as passivity.

But the body can respond to danger in several ways.

It may fight.

It may flee.

It may freeze.

It may submit.

It may disconnect.

It may try to please the dangerous person in order to reduce risk.

Becoming quiet or compliant may therefore be a survival response, not consent.

The child may learn that less resistance makes the act shorter, less violent, or more predictable. It may try to read the perpetrator’s mood and do what reduces danger.

Later, the adult may feel ashamed of precisely what helped the child through the situation:

I did what he said.

I lay still.

I pretended it was all right.

I made sure he did not become angry.

But the survival strategy was not moral approval. It was the child’s work of getting through something it could not control as safely as possible.

What later looks like obedience may have been a form of resistance adapted to a situation in which open resistance was too dangerous.

Why Did I Not Tell?

This question often remains as the central piece of evidence in the false trial against the child.

If it really was abuse, why did I tell no one?

But there are many reasons why children do not tell:

They have no words.
They do not understand what is happening.
They believe it is normal.
They are threatened.
They fear not being believed.
They want to protect siblings or parents.
They feel ashamed of the body’s reactions.
They experience themselves as complicit.
They love the perpetrator.
They fear what will happen to him or her.
They believe the family will fall apart.
They have tried to say something before without being understood.
They do not know who is safe.

It may also be that the child tells without adults hearing.

Its behaviour changes.

It develops stomach pain.

It becomes quiet or restless.

It avoids a person.

It uses words the adults do not understand.

It asks indirectly.

It reveals a small part and watches how the adult reacts.

When the response does not create safety, the child withdraws.

Silence may therefore also contain failed attempts at speech.

The Second Betrayal

For some, the later disclosure is met with disbelief, minimisation, or breach of confidence.

John described how, as an adult, he confided in a female friend. She passed the story on. He lost control over who knew and experienced this as a new betrayal.

Such an experience may confirm the child’s old lesson:

It was dangerous to tell.

When the story is taken from the person and spread without consent, something of the original powerlessness is repeated. Once again, someone else decides what will happen to something that belongs to him.

The adult may then blame himself for telling:

I should have known better.

I should have kept it to myself.

False guilt keeps finding new places to attach itself. The child was guilty because it remained silent. The adult becomes guilty because he spoke.

In this way, it becomes almost impossible to act correctly.

The Adult Takes Over the Accuser’s Voice

Self-reproach may sound like conscience, but it often uses the logic of the perpetrator or the surrounding world.

You could have stopped it.

You must have wanted some of it.

You went back.

You told no one.

You did not resist enough.

When the adult repeats these sentences against himself, the violation continues within the relationship to the self.

The perpetrator’s responsibility becomes smaller, while the child’s impossible responsibility becomes larger.

This is a moral distortion.

The person who had power is explained through circumstances.

The person who was powerless is judged as though she had full freedom.

Working with false guilt therefore does not mean merely comforting the child. It means restoring an accurate moral order.

Who was the adult?

Who understood the situation?

Who had physical, social, or emotional power?

Who had a duty to protect?

Who created the secret?

Who threatened?

Who had the real possibility of stopping the acts?

When the questions are asked in this way, the proper location of responsibility becomes clearer.

But the Child Did Something

A difficult part of the experience is that the child was not only a passive object.

The child may have:

sought out the person
initiated contact
accepted gifts
kept the secret
helped practically
participated in acts
felt excitement or arousal
become jealous of other children
wanted the adult’s attention

This is often what the adult feels most ashamed of.

But the child’s activity must be understood within the relationship the adult created.

A child can act without being responsible in the same way as an adult. It can participate without understanding the meaning. It can try to preserve an attachment. It can do what has been taught, rewarded, or normalised.

The perpetrator may shape a pattern in which the child is gradually drawn in. What later appears to be the child’s initiative may be the result of prolonged boundary violations and conditioning.

The child’s actions do not remove the adult’s responsibility.

They show how thoroughly the child was brought into the adult’s world.

Saying That the Child Was Not to Blame

It may seem simple to say:

You were a child. It was not your fault.

But the sentence does not always reach the person.

The adult may reply:

You do not know everything I did.

You do not know that I went back.

You do not know that it sometimes felt good.

You do not know that I did not say no.

You do not know that I protected him.

Then the reassurance “it was not your fault” may feel as though the helper has failed to understand the most shameful part.

The exoneration must therefore be precise.

Not:

You did nothing.

But:

What you did must be understood as the actions of a child within a relationship for which the adult was responsible.

Not:

You had no reactions.

But:

Your reactions were not consent.

Not:

You could not move.

But:

The possibilities you technically had were not necessarily real or safe.

Not:

You did not love the perpetrator.

But:

Your attachment did not make the violation less real and did not give the adult a right to your body.

The child does not need to be made completely passive or without will in order to be without guilt.

The child needs to be understood as a child.

Grief for What One Did Not Do

When guilt begins to loosen, grief may become clearer.

I wish I had received help.

I wish someone had seen.

I wish I had been able to tell.

I wish there had been an adult I could run to.

This grief is different from self-accusation.

Self-accusation says:

I should have acted differently.

Grief says:

I lacked what could have made another action possible.

Grief directs attention towards what the child did not receive:

protection,

language,

credibility,

a safe adult,

the opportunity to be a child.

It can be painful to let go of guilt because guilt may also provide an illusion of control. If I could have stopped it, then I was not completely powerless. If the fault was mine, perhaps I can ensure that it never happens again by becoming stronger, wiser, or more watchful.

Recognising that the child could not control the situation means confronting the real powerlessness.

That is a grief, but also a liberation.

A Choice Today

The child may not have had a real choice then.

The adult may nevertheless gradually gain choices now.

Not the choice to undo the past.

But the choice of:

who may hear
how the story is told
which boundaries apply
whether the perpetrator is allowed any contact
whether forgiveness is desired or not
how the body is treated
which relationships continue
where guilt is placed

This must not be expressed as a new demand for agency.

Now you must take control.

Now you must choose life.

Now you must set boundaries.

Such sentences may make the person guilty again if change comes slowly.

The new choice must be built on the experience that a no is actually respected.

A person does not learn self-determination merely by being told that he or she is free. It is learned through relationships in which choices have real consequences.

No means no.

Wait means wait.

I do not know means the decision is postponed.

Silence does not mean consent.

Changing one’s mind is possible.

In this way, an effective capacity to choose can grow where the child previously had only wordless or dangerous possibilities.

Meeting the Child with a Different Question

The adult often asks:

Why did I not stop it?

Perhaps the question should be replaced with another:

What did the child do to survive?

The child may have:

become quiet
disconnected
tried to satisfy the perpetrator
protected siblings
preserved everyday life
hidden feelings
endured
sought small places of safety
waited for it to end
continued living

This perspective does not change the events. But it changes the way the child is seen.

From accomplice to survivor.

From passive to strategic within severely limited possibilities.

From morally weak to a child who did what it could with the knowledge, body, and protection it had.

The Child in the Dock

False guilt may be understood as an inner trial.

The adult is both prosecutor and judge. The child sits in the dock.

The charges are:

You did not say no clearly enough.

You went back.

You told no one.

Your body responded.

You let it happen.

But the trial lacks crucial evidence.

It does not take age into account.

It does not examine the power relationship.

It does not hear the threats.

It does not ask who held responsibility for care.

It treats the child as an equal participant in a relationship in which the child could never be equal.

A fair hearing requires the whole situation to be considered.

Then the verdict must change.

The child was present.

The child reacted.

The child tried to understand and survive.

But the child was not the responsible adult.

A Sentence for the Child

Perhaps the child needs a sentence the adult can repeat without making the experience simpler than it was:

You did not do everything you now wish you had done.

You could not know everything you know today.

You did not have the adult’s power, language, or overview.

Some of your reactions may still be difficult to understand.

You may have gone back, remained silent, or felt something good.

Even so, the responsibility was not yours.

It was the adult who should have set the boundary.

It was the adult who should have protected.

It was the adult who knew or should have known.

You were not responsible for saving yourself from the person who was responsible for not harming you.

Giving the Child Back Its Childhood

Abuse brings the child into the adult world too early.

The child is burdened with secrets, sexuality, responsibility, and choices that do not belong to childhood.

Later, self-accusation may continue this deprivation. The adult still demands that the child should have been mature, clear, and capable enough to protect itself.

Undoing false guilt is therefore also about returning to the child the right to have been a child.

A child who could be confused.

A child who could love the wrong person.

A child who could freeze.

A child who could remain silent.

A child who could long for attention.

A child who should not have been responsible for understanding the adult’s actions.

The adult cannot go back and protect the child as it should have been protected.

But she can stop standing on the perpetrator’s side in the inner trial.

She can walk over to the child in the dock and say:

You should not be sitting here.

You were not the one who should have been judged.

When Choice Becomes Possible

The child may later believe it had a choice.

In reality, it often had only different forms of danger.

Tell and risk loss.

Remain silent and carry the secret.

Resist and face threats.

Adapt and later feel ashamed.

These were not free choices between equal alternatives. They were attempts to navigate a situation the child should never have been placed in.

The adult may gradually learn to see this.

Not in order to make the child powerless again, but to free it from a responsibility it never had.

Only then can another choice become possible in the present:

to stand on the child’s side.

To say:

You should have been protected.

You were not guilty because you could not protect yourself.

It was not your responsibility to stop the adult.

And it is no longer your responsibility to carry the adult’s guilt.

You should have been protected.

You were not guilty because you could not protect yourself.

It was not your responsibility to stop the adult.

And it is no longer your responsibility to carry the adult’s guilt.

This essay was developed through a new reading of the focus-group discussions and in-depth interviews that formed the foundation of my doctoral dissertation, A Study of Shame (2009). The text is part of the series Conversations About Shame and was written in conversation with OpenAI/ChatGPT.