When should I start to teach protective behaviours and personal safety
March 17th 2008 by Megan Bayliss in Protective Intelligence
Parents seem terrified to talk about protecting their kids from sexual abuse. “When should I start talking about that sex stuff,” is a question I wish had a dollar for every time it has been asked of me.
If, by sex stuff, you mean protection from sexual abuse then start today! Preferably start teaching protective behaviours from the day your baby is born. Child protection is serious business, and damn it, you are just as responsible as I am for keeping your babies safe.
If by sex stuff you mean straight sex education, forget it. I do not want to talk about just sex! Teaching about sex stuff (intercourse) is not holistic child protection or protective behaviours. That is a fallacy, a myth, similar to stranger danger (did you know that eighty five percent of child sexual assault is perpetrated by somebody well known to the child?). Teaching body boundaries or calling a private part by its correct name, vagina or penis, is not sex education; it is merely learning the correct name for a body part. Do you call an arm an arm, a leg a leg, or do you call them refrigerators? What do you call a vagina? Fanny, mut, peach, wee wee? It is a vagina and knowing its correct name and that it is a private part can help to protect your child. Sex education teaches about the male/female differences, intercourse and how babies are made. Sex is what we do, sexuality is who we are.
Sex education occurs at an age appropriate time - at a time of cognitive understanding and curiosity. Protective behaviours should also occur at an age appropriate time - from birth. Perpetrators do not wait for our children to become cognitively sophisticated before they start their abuse - they pick kids who may become confused through a lack of “my body” knowledge, who may not know they are allowed to say no and tell someone, or kids who have a dislocated support network.
With personal safety conversations we are not talking about sex education, we are talking about teaching protective behaviours. There is no age appropriate time to teach protective behaviours, just age appropriate ways to teach it. My experience with parents and children informs me that it is a scary area and parents worry that they will get it wrong. What we are getting wrong is not teaching it at all. Up to one in three children may be sexually assaulted. They are sexually abused because perpetrators can get to them, trick them and con our kids into believing that they are special, different and that the abusive behaviour is therefore okay.
Knowing correct terminology for private parts is just one part of protective behaviours in action. Your child didn’t have to wait until age eight to be told that their arm is an arm so start telling your babies that their penis is a penis and vagina is a vagina.
To make it easy to know how to broach protective behaviours with your families, I offer you a protective play document called Parent Sense. Parent Sense sets out a range of games and activities to play, at home and on a daily basis, so that your children have the best possible protection from sex predators. It is an easy read, suggests non threatening and every day sensible ways to weave protective behaviour teaching into everyday, at home play.
Parent Sense breaks protective behaviours and protective play up into five important areas, we call it the BITSS model - the important BITSS to remember to help keep your kids safe:
Each of the five sections (body ownership, intuition, touch, say no and support network), set out a range of easy play ideas that you can do at almost any time and any where. Feedback from parents and grandparents has been that it is one of the best practical protective behaviour applications they have ever been given. It’s free too! It is my gift to other parents because I am sick to death of kids being sexually abused again and again.
Still not sure how to teach personal safety through protective play? Here’s some other short articles on the how to of protective play. Remember than knowledge is power - keep learning about protective play and you will start practicing it by default.
When should I start teaching my child about protective behaviours? Today. Download Parent Sense now and start protectively playing because play is a child’s job and protecting your child is your job!
I LOVE these child safety focused articles:
Baby safety with friendly strangers by Joyce from Keeping Kids Safe
Launching Child Safety and Child Sexual Abuse Series
Child Safety - Remembering that I am the adult.
Adolescent Sexuality by Dr Karen Rayne
Want to “write” the wrongs against our Kids? Join our
Child safety writing competition to WIN CASH.
Stumble it!
March 17th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
As usual, thank you for giving us tools and resources to approach the important issue of protecting our children.
By the way - I notice the $5.50 you normally charge for this - do you want a paypal contribution at all?
March 17th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Hey Jeanie
no need for a paypal contribution but thanks for noticing that it is one of my saleable tools anyway. I firmly believe that it is my responsibility to freely share some skills and knowledge to help keep all kids safe. All I ask is that someone, somewhere, keeps a protective eye on my 4 kids.
Big girl has just rung me from Melbourne airport - they are safely home from shopping in Thailand - but her husband got frisked for drugs at the airport!!! I am just glad they are back safely, albeit much poorer after 8 days of shopping!!!!!
March 18th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Knowledge certainly is power, Megan! Great article, as always.
I just love the phrase “Sex is what we do. Sexuality is who we are.” It’s so true. Every child is constantly learning about their sexuality simply by the way their interactions with other people and themselves. Conscious sexuality education is so important so that we can help to nurture and protect our little people.
I loved ‘Baby safety with strangers’, too. I struggled with this when my twin girls were born. On a few occasions I was “Downright rude with Don’t touch my child please!”, until we worked out some alternatives. Now that they are older, they are more aware of their personal space. They responded really well to relationship “Circles”, too. So much so, I now get in trouble for telling ’strangers’ the name of our dog. “That’s a personal question and they are not in your circle, mum!”
Glad the Thailand trip was safe and successful - “poorer” depends on the interpretation, doesn’t it? I’d much rather a rich 8 day shopping spree and a poor purse than a rich purse and light suitcase!