Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
How To Teach Kids About Body Safety And Consent: Tricky People, Secrets, And Safety Plans
8k Plays5 months ago
CW: Sexual abuse, grooming, sex-related topics
In this powerful episode, Jess and Scott discuss the importance of teaching body safety to kids of all ages.
Jess has been educating parents about these topics for over a decade, and in this episode, she answers Scott’s questions about why it’s so important for parents and kids to understand body safety and consent.
Jess explains how to help children tune into their "uh oh feeling" when something doesn't feel right and how to know the difference between trusted and "tricky" people. She provides concrete examples of what parents should teach and model, from babies to school-age children, to decrease children's vulnerability and help them feel confident in their bodies and relationships.
While the topic is serious, Jess reassures listeners that these ongoing conversations can be done in a calm, playful way that empowers rather than scares kids.
If you want more resources to teach your child about body safety and consent, check out The Body Safety Toolkit!
Learn more about supporting kids with body safety, big feelings, and so much more from our Nurtured First blog.
Get 10% OFF parenting courses and kids' printable activities at Nurtured First using the code ROBOTUNICORN.
Credits:
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Content Advisory
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey friends, Jess here. Before we start the show, I wanted to note that today's episode includes mature content. It's not going to be the best show to listen to with little ears around. Hope you enjoy.
Opening Segment: Listener Question
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to Robot Unicorn. We are so glad that you are here. As always, let's start the show with a question from Scott.
Body Safety and Trusted Adults
00:00:27
Speaker
So this past weekend, I was at the most nerdy YouTube conference. I could talk about it for hours, but we'll talk about something else that happened this weekend. So while I was away, you told me that you had a couple of very interesting conversations with the girls about. Two different things. One about death and difficult topics like that. And the other, which I want to ask a question about today is on body safety. yeah So my question today is how do you teach about body safety and like trust versus untrusted adults when you're talking about people who are close to you, like family or friends? Oh, that's a good question. I know. Explain what you talked about first and then you can get into that question after.
00:01:12
Speaker
So this weekend, for context, we were going to a family camping. And with family camping, it was my uncles and aunts, my parents, my brother and his wife, and a whole bunch of my cousins were there. And on the drive over, my daughter started talking to me a little bit about body safety. It's a conversation that we have pretty often in our home. And she goes, mom, it's perfect. Everybody there is family. So it automatically means everyone there is trusted. And trusted versus untrusted people or tricky people, that's language that we'll often use in our home.
Characteristics of Trustworthy Individuals
00:01:44
Speaker
And when she said that to me, it just, it brought up a feeling in my own body. I was like, I don't actually know how to respond to you because in my mind, all the people there are trusted. I know them all. I was raised with them all and they've always been trusted to me, but I also don't want to teach her that just because you know someone, that means automatically we can trust them with everything.
00:02:04
Speaker
And I also don't want a teacher to never trust anyone. So I brought up actually this really conflicting feeling in me because there's a lot of people that were going to be there, right? Maybe 50 people. And I think it would not be fair of me to say, yeah, 100%, you can trust every single person that's there. Or any time we're with any family, you can trust all of them because they're family. Because I don't know that that's the safest option for them either, even if they likely are trustworthy people.
Teaching Body Safety without Anxiety
00:02:30
Speaker
So that's kind of where this conversation started from and I said to my daughter I said okay that's interesting maybe let's start by just talking about what it means to be a trusted person what do trusted people do and that's where we started instead of coming at her with anxiety.
00:02:47
Speaker
I think a lot of the times when we come at these conversations with kids, we automatically get anxious. We're like, no, no, no, like you actually can't trust everyone. Or, no, just because they're family doesn't mean we can trust them. But I didn't come at it from that lens with her. I came at it with, oh, okay, yeah, you think everyone there is trustworthy. Well, let's talk about that. What does it mean to be a trustworthy person? And she started naming some of the things that trustworthy people do. They make you feel safe. So it's like, okay, well, what does that mean? Well, they never try and hurt you. They never try and trick you. I think that's a new thing that she's been talking about a lot lately, is people trying to trick you. So she's like, trustworthy person will never try and trick you.
00:03:28
Speaker
And she said, a trustworthy person will never tell you to keep a secret from your parents. I said, yep, trustworthy people don't make us tell secrets. Trustworthy person won't tell me to come with them or solve their problems for them if they're grown up. He said, yep, grown ups don't ask kids to solve their problems. That's something that would be tricky. And we kind of went through this list and you and I can talk more about the list of the things that trustworthy people do. To be honest, I don't even know if I know all the answers to that either. So. Yeah. I mean, I think our daughter, she's seven and we've had these conversations so many times that it is not a source of anxiety for her. Like this is just a conversation that we normally have. And I think that's where a lot of people struggle because they think, oh, if you're going to talk about body safety and trusted and tricky people, you're automatically going to create this kind of anxiety in your children. And they're going to look at the world as a place that's unsafe or scary or bad.
Identifying Safe Adults and Tricky Behaviors
00:04:20
Speaker
And I actually push back on that. And I say, no, I think that we need to teach what I call people safety in the same way that we teach safety around all the other things, road safety, internet safety. This is just a different form of safety. And it's really important to teach our children the difference between things that are trusted and that trusted adults or trusted kids even do. It protects them from bullying and tricky. And just because someone did something tricky doesn't make them a bad person, but it should stir up a feeling that then you go back to your trusted people and you tell them what happened. yeah
00:04:51
Speaker
And so as we were talking about this trusted versus tricky people thing, I said, OK, so there's going to be a lot of people there. And our older daughters were sleeping over with my parents, who I trust deeply. And they've slept over it with my parents tons of times. My parents are very trustworthy people. So I said, Grandma and Papa, those are your safe people when you're there. Those are your adults in charge when mom and dad are not there. So if anything tricky happens, who are you going to go to? And then they said, grandma and Papa. And then I was like, okay, so now let's talk about what tricky could look like. And I said, what do you think would be something tricky that maybe you would want to talk to grandma and Papa about? And she started with, well, if anyone tries to touch me and I say, no, then that's tricky. Like, yeah, exactly. So if anyone tries to touch you, I said, what does that touch look like? Well, if someone wants to hug me and I don't want to hug, then that's tricky. Yeah.
00:05:46
Speaker
Even that's tricky. And I said, even if it's a little cousin then and you just feel in your body, like that doesn't feel right, you can still tell grandma and papa. It doesn't mean that they're in trouble or you're in trouble. Like you can just let them know that you feel like something's tricky. And then we got into more things that tricky people do. Like they ask you to keep a secret from your parents or they try and hurt you or they try and take you away from your parents or they try and touch you without your consent or they show you pictures that make you feel uncomfortable. So we went through that list of all the things that tricky people do. And because we've had these conversations starting around the time when she was about three and a half, she's really confident in these topics. But what I noticed was our younger daughter, who's four, who's just starting to kind of understand these topics, she was listening with a really keen ear.
Early Body Safety Education
00:06:36
Speaker
And this is for her kind of closer to the first time that she's really starting to internalize these topics, which is very different for her.
00:06:43
Speaker
I feel like to date, she definitely has not internalized this information. And I mean, it makes sense because she's four, she's little. So that was actually going to be a question of mine. So what age do you start having these conversations with your kids? Because it seems as though they can understand certain aspects of it when they're three or four, but more when they're, let's say, your oldest daughter seven. So how do you know what to teach your kids at what age? To me it seems like a very complicated topic. Like I feel like our oldest daughter probably answered better than I even would.
00:07:14
Speaker
Yeah. Her and I have had these conversations for years and unfortunately, and I don't know how much we want to talk about this on the podcast, but we had a situation come up where something was unsafe. Like we had an unsafe person in our life and she was between the ages of three to four. So we actually really had to have these conversations with her super intentionally for her protection. yeah Right. Whereas our our other daughter, she hasn't had that same kind of situation really happen and she's mostly home. So we haven't had those conversations as much with her. What I would say about the age is we start talking about body safety from birth. And a lot of people are like, Oh, Jess, that's so woo woo of you. Yeah. Well, I know that you say that and I still don't really understand what that means to be honest, even though I work with you daily. I think that's sometimes the problem being married to a therapist. You're like, you'll take care of that. Yeah. You'll take care of having those conversations with the girls. And that's something that I want to kind of bring you in on more, especially as they get older.
00:08:07
Speaker
Yeah. Like I know part of what I do is I name body parts yeah and I talk at a, I would say a low level about body safety topics, but I even wouldn't say that I'm an expert in into how to talk to our girls about that. pains me a little bit, but we'll teach you today. Perfect. Yeah. And just so you all know, if you're listening to the podcast, my history in this, I've been teaching body safety for over 10 years. When I was in my undergrad, that's when I started teaching body safety and I taught classes to adults and children with intellectual disabilities for years and years and years.
00:08:42
Speaker
and I was on a bunch of sexuality and body safety committees trying to help get this education out there to protect young children and adults because what the research will show us is if we don't teach our children about body safety, about sex, about consent, it actually increases their vulnerability to abuse. So if we want to protect our children from abuse, the best thing that we can do is take a proactive approach. But most families, most parents that I've supported over the years They don't know, just like you, right? How do I take a proactive approach? Honestly, there's probably no even less than me. Like, the only reason I know anything is because of you. Right. and like the body safety toolkit and our, like the course and everything. Like, so I'm a part of it, but still, I don't feel like I'm an expert. You don't feel super confident having these discussions. No. And I think that's so many people because we weren't raised with these discussions and no one was talking about body safety when we were kids and it can feel uncomfortable. The only thing I was ever told was to watch out for strangers because they might take you away in their van. Yeah, the candy van. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I was afraid of anyone with a van.
Respecting Bodily Autonomy and Affection
00:09:45
Speaker
Yes, of course. The grounds are terrifying. Yeah, I think that's what most of us were taught, stranger danger, right? Don't trust a stranger. ah I'll get into that a little bit later, but that way of thinking is actually outdated. There's a new approach that we take to stranger danger now. But to go back to your question, when do we start teaching body safety? We start when they're babies, and this is what we do. So we start when they're babies by first off, we just name their body parts even while you're changing their diaper, right? And and can they understand the words that you're saying? Maybe not.
00:10:18
Speaker
but you yourself are practicing not having shame around naming a body part, even when they're babies. So it's actually a lot for yourself to just practice and feel comfortable to name body parts. And a lot of people are like, Oh, do they really need to know the word penis or the word vulva? You know, I didn't even know the word vulva till I was 30. I'll hear that from a lot of people. And that's why I want parents to start naming those body parts early because it just helps you get comfortable. So by the time you're having these conversations and they're a little bit older, you're not blushing when you say the word penis anymore. And other things that we'll do with a baby is if we notice, let's say someone is trying to kiss your baby, right? How many times have you had that you have a nine month old, they're so cute and some grandma goes in for a big kiss and the baby doesn't want it. The baby's pushing grandma away. You're going to practice even at that age, advocating for their body autonomy. We're not going to let grandma come and give the baby a hundred kisses when the baby's crying and pushing grandma away. We're just going to really gently name it. Hey, grandma it looks like baby doesn't want kisses right now. And we're just going to respect that. So at an early age, you are going to teach your child that you respect their wishes around their body.
00:11:30
Speaker
Now, of course, immediately I hear from people, well, there's times when I need to wipe yeah my child's bum. That's the first thing I was going to say. What about the ah times you have to change the diaper? Right. And so there's times. And so what I suggest to people, and again, you're practicing when they're babies, so don't think it's a waste just because they can't necessarily understand the words. They can understand the intention. They can actually understand a lot more than we give them credit for. I remind them why and who. So for example, let's say I'm changing even our two-year-old's diaper and she doesn't want me to change her diaper, but I have to because there's poop, right? So I will remind her why I'm changing her diaper. I'm changing her diaper because it's it's poop and I need to keep you clean to keep your body safe, you know? Even if she's protesting, I'll just say it once. I don't over explain. And I'll remind her of who? It's mommy. So I can change her diaper because I'm safe to you and I'm here to take care of you and that's my job.
00:12:23
Speaker
And even that is hard, right? There's so much nuance while some people aren't safe and they could use the same explanation. But I think in all my work and in teaching this for so many years, that's the best kind of solution I've come up with, reminding them why. So there's a reason why you're doing this. And if you can't come up with the reason why you have to touch your child in a certain way, then yeah, maybe you can take a step back. So reminding them why it's for safety purposes most of the time. and who, it's you, it's your mom and I'm safe. Does that help answer that question? Yeah, I think so. So those are the things that I want parents doing when they have a baby because A, it just sets a stage for success. Right away your child learns, oh, my body's gonna be respected. If I don't wanna kiss, that's respected. If I don't wanna hug, that's respected. But B, it starts training you as a parent because a lot of this does not feel natural at first, especially the language around anatomically correct names.
00:13:17
Speaker
and a lot of people push back like those words are dirty or those are bad. I know we've both heard that from people but I really push back on that to parents and say it's just a body part. Like you wouldn't be worried about saying elbow or nose
Understanding Safe Touch
00:13:30
Speaker
so why should we be worried about saying penis or vulva or scrotum like those are just body parts as well. Like there's nothing dirty that's our own adult perception looking at it in a dirty way. Right. I mean, that goes back to the question that I had in the episode on sex. I feel as though it's because those body parts as an adult can end up being used for more taboo type things like sex.
00:13:55
Speaker
Exactly. And we view it because we're adults and we have this experience. So we view all of these things. We even view like little kids will sometimes get erections over things, right? and And parents will view that as bad or dirty or you'll find your daughter touching herself. We view that from our adult lens instead of from the lens of a child that's like, this is just a normal part of their body. They're curious and yeah, we can set boundaries around certain things. But it's not a sexual thing in nature from them. It's not a dirty thing. It's just them exploring and getting curious about their bodies. That's the baby stage. So in the baby stage, we're naming anatomically correct names. We're reminding them why and who if we have to touch them without their consent or they're pushing us away. And we try as best we can to narrate when either they love touch like, oh, you really wanted a big hug from mommy. Oh, it feels so good to have a hug. You know, I'm sure you've heard me say that a million times.
00:14:50
Speaker
Yeah. Or we're narrating when they don't want touch. Oh, I see you're pushing me away. That's okay. And even between the siblings, like you can respect consent between the siblings. Oh, look, your sister, look at her face. The baby really is not interested in the hug from you. That's okay. We'll respect that. Yeah, we have that to it with the two younger girls. yeah They love to hug each other and sometimes one of them wants it and the other one doesn't. and So we have to... We have to respect that. A constant narration. Yeah, exactly. And then from there, we enter into the toddler stage. So you're doing a lot of the same things in the toddler stage. You're still talking about anatomically correct names. You're still narrating consent. And this is where we might start to give a little more language around the consent piece.
00:15:29
Speaker
Oh, you said no. No means no. So if you say no to hug, I'm not going to hug you. So we might just do a little more description around that. But still, I mean, I'm picturing our two-year-old, like I'm probably not talking about safe and tricky people with her yet. yeah I'm not having those bigger conversations because she's she's too young. The other thing that we're doing is we as parents need to be in control of who are they seeing? Who are they around? Do we trust them? And I think for parents, if you ever have an unsure feeling in your own body around someone who's taking care of your child,
00:16:03
Speaker
Really tuning in with that because at this young age, at this toddler age, you're the boss. Like you're in charge and where you put your kid, you need to be 100% sure that they're going to be safe there. and And that can be really tricky for us as parents, but that's I think the role that we have in those toddler years. So I can foresee, like even myself, the way I think about it, my question to you would be, you've given the example of your parents being trusted, safe adults. yeah What is the harm in one of them, let's say your dad wanting to give our middle daughter a hug and she doesn't want a hug, but you think, well, he's a safe and trusted adult, so you should just give him a hug.
00:16:42
Speaker
What is the harm in saying that? Because there's no risk, you're right there, right? Like there's nothing wrong with the situation inherently. They both love each other, you know that. And like he just wants a hug. What's the big deal? Yeah, what's the big deal with that? Yeah. And people will always say that just, it's not that big of a deal. Like just yeah you, it's a respect thing. Like your children should respect the grandparents and give them a hug or whatever. I mean, whether it's respect or not, like it's mostly just the fact that they're safe. It's a trusted safe adult, like you've said. So you know that they can trust them. So what is the harm in then allowing a hug when your child doesn't want it? The bigger question here I think is,
00:17:22
Speaker
I mean, I have a lot of safe people in my life. You're a safe person to me. And there's times I don't want to hug from you, right? And what's that feeling in your body when you don't want to hug from someone, whether or not they're safe. That's why I always want to hug from you. I heard it here, folks. He always wants a hug. I don't know. You've never been much of a cuddler. And so this is a new information. No, those are two different things. Oh, okay. There you go. So the cuddling, right? I'm going to go with this. So know let's say it's an evening and I want to snuggle on the couch and you are not really interested in snuggling on the couch.
00:18:00
Speaker
Right? There's a feeling in your body that's just like, I need some space. Like maybe the girls have been all over you all day long and it's been a busy day. Maybe you're stressed out about something and just, you're just not really in the mood to snuggle and and have more, or you're hot and watch a movie, but I'm safe. Does it make it wrong for you to not want to snuggle for me? No. So to go further into that, what I would say is there's a feeling in our child's body when they don't wanna hug. It doesn't mean they don't love grandpa or papa or whoever it is. It doesn't mean that they're being disrespectful or rude, but their body is telling them something. And it could be that they're hot. It could be that they're overwhelmed. They're just not in the mood. They don't wanna be pressured to do it. And when we override that feeling and say, even though you feel this way, you have to,
00:18:49
Speaker
give a hug because he's a safe person. We teach our child to abandon that feeling in their body to do what someone else wants them to do. And even if we do that with safe people, now our daughter has learned, I abandon that feeling in my body that tells me I don't want a touch or I don't want a hug to hug someone who's safe to me. And a child can't differentiate between what that
Balancing Feelings and Boundaries
00:19:10
Speaker
means, right? I could differentiate between that if you don't want to snuggle, but I'm like, ugh, I'll do it for Scott because I know this will be nice for him. He wants to hold my hand while we watch a movie or whatever, you know? Like, that's different because I i can contextualize that. A child can't. So now we're saying override that uh-oh feeling in your body that's telling you that you don't want to hug and just hug grandpa because he wants it and he's safe.
00:19:32
Speaker
what's gonna happen when there's a kid in class who's like, hey like let's touch each other in the bathroom and they're friends. But don't you think that's a bit of a stretch? Like you're going from someone you've talked about and is safe to you to like another child who is not a trusted adult in your life. So you you just think that a child won't be able to differentiate between those two situations. It's not that they can't differentiate. Like I know our oldest daughter could differentiate between that, but it's teaching them, I truly believe to override the feeling in their body and to like, for lack of a better word, like to sown that feeling to make somebody else happy. In that situation, they're not hugging Papa because they want to. There's no yes in their body. They're saying no. So the only reason that they'd be hugging Papa is to make him happy and make all the adults around them happy.
00:20:24
Speaker
So whether or not that exactly translates to a friend trying to hug them in the bathroom or something like that It is the adults in our child's life teaching them, no you override your own personal feeling to make other people happy. And I do think that that context goes outside of the safe relationships. A child learns that. So if I understand correctly, then what you're trying to say is this feeling that they have, even if it's with a safe and trusted adult in their life, even with one of us, If you are trying to get them to hug you, even though they don't want to, and you're essentially causing them to like disown that feeling of, I don't want to be touched. Yeah. Like it's more important for them to be mindful of that feeling and follow that feeling so that you extrapolate later into life. They will be able to do that when they're not around a trusted safe at all. And they can determine, like differentiate between situations where they are safe and where they are not safe. Exactly. Okay. My goal in life for my kids is that they don't turn out like me and I feel like this is nothing my parents did but this is even just like the culture that so many of us grew up in, right? Where we just want to make people happy. And I think if you look at a child who's constantly being told to disown their own feeling to make the adults around them happy,
00:21:44
Speaker
even if the adults are quote-unquote safe to them, it's not really a safe thing that we're doing. And that goes with physical touch, but it goes with a lot of different things, right? Like if we teach our child, my goal for you is to make me happy and comfort the feelings of the adults around me so that Papa doesn't get sad because you didn't give him a hug. That's not our daughter's job. That's not a child's job. I'll stand firm in that one, no matter how hard people push me and say, well, it's just their grandparent, they're safe. It's setting your child up for going against that feeling they have in their body to make somebody else happy. And I just don't think that that's our children's job.
00:22:18
Speaker
Okay. I can get on board with that. That makes sense. So that's what we're doing that in the toddler stages. Can I ask one other question about that? As a parent, I feel like you often talk about it's our job to discipline or like definition of discipline is teaching. It's our job to be in charge. Yeah. Be in charge and like guide them through their early stages of life so they can develop well. So in certain things, we're like setting boundaries around what they can and can't do. And what you're basically saying is that children have this internal feeling that is right kind of from the beginning.
Consent among Siblings
00:22:52
Speaker
But why is that feeling right? But others maybe are not. Well, we're never setting boundaries around feelings. We're setting boundaries around behavior.
00:23:00
Speaker
So I think that's the difference. I think it's a good question. A lot of people had asked that, but you're never setting a boundary around the way the child feels. They are always allowed to feel however they feel about something. We are setting boundaries sometimes around behavior because it's unsafe and yeah they have immature brains, they can't control their impulses. But in this situation, let's say it's giving Papa a hug or giving Dad a hug, that's a feeling inside of their body. So I think that right that's the difference. So you're not trying to change the way they feel, but you may be trying to change the way they behave in certain situations because it's unsafe. Yeah, unsafe or they're being mean to other other people or whatever. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.
00:23:39
Speaker
I think that's a good question. So back to the ages, we're talking about toddlers. That's where we got on this tangent of we're teaching toddlers how to tune in with that feeling inside of themselves. And we're starting to name it, right? Oh, you're looking like you really don't want to hug from your sister right now. That's okay. Okay. We're going to take some space. That's the boundary, right? Okay. To the sister, I i need you to not hug her because you just noticed her face. She doesn't want to hug right now. So we're just starting to say that and we're all also naming that. I know with my our own daughter, I've had to name that when she hugs other kids. Like we have one kid who's very touchy and huggy. She loves to hug. She loves to hug and I never ever want her to feel shame about that. I love that she loves to hug.
00:24:18
Speaker
And sometimes the other kids that she's hugging, they don't want it. And it's important for me to name that for her because it doesn't stop her loving nature. I had someone say that to me once. Well, like she's so loving, I don't want her to stop being loving. But actually it's not doing that, but it's teaching her how to ask for a hug and how to ask for consent, which is actually going to protect her. Right. And like by extension, she'll be learning that she can do the same thing for herself. Exactly. Yeah.
Parental Roles in Body Safety Education
00:24:44
Speaker
It makes sense. So teaching consent isn't just your child demanding consent from others. It's also teaching your child how to ask others for a hug. Like even when we have friends over a little play date and there's other kids over at our house and other kids are leaving and they all always want to hug each other. I just say to our kids like, Oh, just make sure you ask them first.
00:25:02
Speaker
And most of the time they both say yes and then they're like falling on the floor hugging each other because they love each other so much. But it's just good to get into practice of of asking. I have done that with our middle daughter in preschool. So there's one check for me. Finally. You have done that. Yes. Okay, good. Scott, I actually think you're doing a lot more than you think. Yeah, I know. I think you are. too bad, but I definitely feel like there's a lot of holes in my knowledge of this subject. Yeah. And probably a big part of that is just because I have you. So. Yeah. It's like the discussion we had on like periods and stuff. We had people commenting on how I shouldn't stop learning about it, which I think is true. Yeah. It's more out of like, I don't know, it's almost maybe laziness on my part because I have, let's say the parenting expert with my wife. So then I feel like, well, I will never be as good as what you can teach.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah, but I don't want you to feel that way. I want to equip you to have those conversations, but I do understand and we're busy parents. And and I think this is the context of so many relationships where one parent kind of takes the mental load of that type of stuff, but it's important to share. And that's why we're having these conversations so that even this episode you can share with a partner or something like that. And so that you can both be on the same page or listen to it together. This podcast has been good for me because I feel as though I have been learning a lot of things just through our discussions here or your interviews with with other people too. So now let's move into the preschool age. This is a really, I would say, important critical age to start teaching a little bit more of these body safety tips.
00:26:32
Speaker
We have a body safety toolkit, and this is not an ad for the body safety toolkit, but when people ask me what age to start the body safety toolkit, I always say between three to four. It's a nice time. And it's not that they're gonna understand everything that you're teaching them right away, but you're gonna start to build the roots. And now that our child is four, for example, the roots that we've been planting, I see that now she's like, oh, I'm starting to understand, trusted people a little bit more. But I've been talking about it with her since she was three, and she didn't get it right away. So around three to four preschool age, this is often also the time when some kids start going to school, depending on where you live, like preschool, like not junior kindergarten, but they'll go to daycare, they'll go to preschool. Well, I mean, in the U.S., they might be sending kids already in the first year, right? Yeah, yeah. I guess I'm talking about Canada. but Yeah, something different here. Canada and some European countries, but in the States, yeah, your child might already be in school. So this is really important to talk about.
00:27:25
Speaker
This is when I start talking about the difference between trusted and tricky people. That's the language I use. Sometimes I'll use untrusted, but I feel like tricky is just cleaner and a little bit easier to understand. Yeah, it's easy for a kid to understand that. So trusted people, this is what we're talking about right at the beginning of the episode. And we're going to start to bring in that language of how they feel in their body. So you know how I was saying when you're forcing a child to hug someone and there's that feeling in your body that's telling you, no, I don't want to hug. That feeling is so important to teach our child to tune in with.
00:27:59
Speaker
I think that's actually outside of all the language, outside of everything else.
Building Trust and Identifying Trusted Adults
00:28:03
Speaker
That's the number one thing I want our children to learn, is to tune in with the feeling inside of their body that either says uh-oh, I call it the uh-oh feeling. So when someone asks you to do something that doesn't feel quite right to you, if a stranger comes up to you and and starts talking to you, if someone shows you a picture that makes you feel uncomfortable, All of those things, they might bring up a feeling inside of your body called an uh-oh feeling. If you have the uh-oh feeling, I want you to come to us right away and and tell me about it. And there's a difference between a uh-oh feeling in our body and a safe feeling. I'm kind of also veering into that early school age territory here, but I would ask my kids, what makes you feel safe in your body?
00:28:41
Speaker
And I remember asking my daughter that one, so she's like, cool well, when I'm snuggling on the couch with you and dad and watching a movie on Friday, because we always watch movies on Friday nights, I feel so safe. It's like, OK, so that feeling of safety is how I want you to feel when you're with friends, when you're with family, when you're in other places. And if you ever are not feeling a feeling of safety in your body, but you're actually feeling an uh-oh feeling, and because we've talked about it so much, she knows what that means, then I want you to tell us. Having an uh-oh feeling doesn't mean something is totally wrong. It just means that maybe there's an alarm going off that you should talk to us about it. You might need some guidance here from us. Yeah, and then that's when we'll go into who are your trusted people. And something that I think I have in the toolkit, or I've taught to clients for many, many years,
00:29:25
Speaker
is trying to find five people who parents also trust. So it's not just who the kid trusts because we don't leave that to a child to figure out, but who are your five trusted people? And not every child is going to have five. They might have one or two. Like it might be you and and your partner or you and your mom or something like that. right So for us, I think we've gone through it before with our daughter. It's like, hey, mom, dad, grandma, papa, and then maybe like her aunt or something like that. Those are my trusted people. It's like, okay, so if something ever makes you feel uh-oh, like how are you going to come and tell one of us? And then if we don't listen, who's the next person you're going to tell? And I try to teach our kids that even if the first person that you told the uh-oh feeling to just dismisses you, then I want you to tell the next person. I think this is really, really important. I think about this because I heard a story about a little girl who went to summer camp and something happened to her. One of the counselors did something to her in the day camp and she told another counselor because that was supposed to be the trusted person and that counselor did nothing about it. The child felt like I did what I needed to do. Someone was touched in the bathroom inappropriately and then she went to the counselor who was supposed to be in charge and she told them and then they didn't do anything.
00:30:43
Speaker
So the little girl went through the summer and this happened to her all summer. And her mom was like, Jess, I don't understand. like I taught her, you have to tell someone if if this happens. But the child, because she was dismissed when she told the person who was supposed to be in charge and the person didn't do anything, she felt like, I did it, I did it. And then it just kind of stopped there. And the child was actually super distressed and and needed more support. So it reminded me that we want to teach our children if the first trusted person you tell doesn't listen, you keep going until someone takes you serious. And I really want people to take home that message too. And I mean, I think so many of us women and even men, you know, there's times in your life, I'm sure even that you can think about, oh, like someone knew that this was wrong, but they didn't do anything about it. And that should be assigned to a child to just keep, keep talking. So that's really important. My question would be how trusted is an adult if they're not gonna listen to the child. Yeah, as your children get older, you can say that to them too. yeah Like it's actually not a trusted adult if they don't take you serious when you go to them with something that feels serious to you. Even if you feel and you're the adult and a child saying like, well, my cousin was tickling me and I didn't like how I was tickled. Take that serious because even the little things like tickling or my cousin hugged me and I didn't want them to. When you take that serious and even if that's just like, thank you so much for telling me like, yeah, that must have felt really uncomfortable that you were being tickled and you didn't want to.
00:32:12
Speaker
I'm going to go talk to your cousin's dad and I'm going to let him know what happened and we're going to make a plan so that that doesn't happen again. Even taking something small like that serious shows your child that they can trust you. But if we start dismissing all the small things that our children come to us with, when the big things happen, they're going to be like, well,
Dangers of Keeping Secrets
00:32:29
Speaker
I'm dismissed, so I'm not going to tell them. right and i know For me, and for us, and for so many parents, I want my kids to know that I'm the first phone call that they make, even when they're older. So we are setting the groundwork in these early years, and unfortunately, bad things can happen in the early years too. But we're setting the groundwork even for when they're teens, when they go off to school, that they're going to still call us and tell us if something happens.
00:32:54
Speaker
and we're setting the groundwork by the fact that they're learning how to trust that uh-oh feeling in their body so that when, you know, a boss down the road does something that makes them feel uncomfortable, like they're gonna know. Even earlier than that, I think once they start getting phones and stuff like that, yeah and they start using social media, which I'm not a fan of, but they will trust that feeling even as potentially being a teenager and they're using this device and they see pictures or a naked picture comes up on their phone and they're like, oh, that stirs up something in me. Oh yeah, that's that feeling that I don't actually feel comfortable with this. But to go back to those early years, and this is not to scare parents, but this is just my experience as a child therapist who's taught this for years, scary stuff happens for our kids and they need to be equipped.
00:33:38
Speaker
I will die on that hill because of the things that I've seen over the years. And they need to know language about consent. They need to know that they're no means no. They need to know the difference between a trusted and and and tricky person. that They need to know that a trusted person would never tell them to keep a secret from their parents. And they need to know that if someone tells them, you have to keep this a secret from your parents. And if your parents find out they're something really bad is going to happen to them, you need to name that before someone says that to them. like I remember teaching our daughter when she was probably four, and and I'm now teaching this to our four-year-old. If someone asks you to keep it secret and says that we're going to be hurt, you need to tell us right away. yeah Or you tell the first trusted person that you see. So you tell your teacher. That's when you're allowed to lie to that person and say, yeah, OK, I'll keep it secret. yep But then you come and tell us right away.
00:34:24
Speaker
Exactly. You come and tell us immediately. Because if we don't give our kids that language, and unfortunately I've seen this happen, and someone else gives it to them first, I remember there was a situation where a child had been touching another child in class, and that child had been whispering to the child that he'd been touching in class, like, if you tell your parents that your parents are gonna die. And a child can't understand that this other child can't make his parents die, right? So the child's like, oh, I would never tell my parents then. And the child kept it a secret for months from his parents. And this happened for months. That's why we want to get ahead of it. We want to teach this to our children. So it comes from
Empowering Children with Knowledge
00:35:03
Speaker
us. And it also gives our children the message that my parents are aware of what's going on. So nothing I tell them will shock my parents. And this is even goes to maybe another episode that we have down the road on sex talk. is like
00:35:16
Speaker
We want to be the ones teaching this to our kids because if we're not, they don't know that we're the experts. So we have to appear as the experts on body safety and consent. We have to appear as the experts on sex so that when they hear these things from other people, they're like, oh, my parents already know this. I already learned it from them first. And I trust what my parents have to say over these other people. Yeah, exactly. yeah If they never hear it from us and they hear it from their friends, well, then they're just going to trust what their friends have to say. What do my parents know? They don't know anything. They never talked to me about this. They probably don't even know that this is a thing that comes with porn and all those things. So another thing back to the trusted and tricky people is pictures. If your child rides a school bus, especially, I would make sure to have this conversation with them. But no matter what, I would have this conversation with them. A trusted person will never show you a picture that makes you feel uncomfortable.
00:36:04
Speaker
because now that there's screens everywhere and a lot of times our kids are riding buses with older kids who might have access to phones and a lot of times on buses there's there's naked pictures being shown, there's graphic gory pictures being shown. Can I say I feel like you said it before talking about all this I don't want to scare parents but I feel like this is exactly what's going to scare parents. It's hard. It's a delicate balance between, I don't want to scare parents, but I also want to be real about what's going on. We can't put our heads in the sand either and think that they're children and they're innocent and they're not going to find anything. Like the thing is, if they have a device and they're left alone with the device, like the internet has everything.
00:36:48
Speaker
It's always a couple clicks away, right? It could have, like, wonderful, like, I don't know, video game stuff. It could have that, which is, in general, pretty harmless. Yeah. But it doesn't take long to find other things on there. But I just think you're talking about how you don't want to scare parents. But I feel like this is the exact conversation that will actually scare parents. So how do you make sure that the people listening aren't going to be terrified now of sending their kids to school? I don't want you to be scared. I want you to be equipped. And I think, like you were saying, putting your head in the sand, I don't want parents to do that either. And I feel like when we do and we're just like, well, the school is safe or this place is safe and we don't think about all the potential outcomes,
00:37:30
Speaker
then we are not necessarily setting our kids up for success. But if we can empower parents to have these conversations and be aware and in the know, and like I said a few times here, be in charge of the conversation, then you're protecting your child. Yeah, you're decreasing their vulnerability. Yeah, they're decreasing their vulnerability to abuse and the simple things that you do like even there was some research and I would need to actually pull it up to reference it correctly, but there was some research saying that kids who knew the names of their body parts were less likely to be abused because the abuser would know like I think this study was done by people who had abused children, something like that. It was an interesting study. But because the abuser would know that the child has the name for their body part, which likely means that they've had these conversations with their parents, which likely means the child would be more likely to tell their parents about what happened.
00:38:25
Speaker
You think abusers are that premeditated? A lot of the time. Not always. But there is some like really interesting data on abusers that's coming out on who they look for and and how they... again. Yeah, let's not scare you with the episode. Now let's go into grooming. And how they groom children, right? and And a lot of it is like getting them to keep a little secret from their parents first and they'll see if the child will keep a little secret. They'll test and they'll see what kind of language a child has around body parts. They might start with tickling and like the grooming process, it's not just like it doesn't usually lead right away to abuse. It's like these little steps.
00:39:03
Speaker
So in your opinion, or based on the research, what you're saying is having these conversations about body safety, about anatomically correct names of body parts, about trusted versus tricky people will reduce the likelihood of any one child. being abused because they have the names for things. They know what feels safe and what doesn't feel safe. They know who they can trust. So you're saying that like all of these things over time, you're helping build like a defense system. Exactly. You by teaching them these things and being the leader are helping your child not only grow up to be confident in themselves and their body, Yeah, I guess you're helping them be mindful of their own feelings. Like outside of all of their other emotions, you're helping them feel confident in the feeling of like, this doesn't feel good to me. This doesn't feel safe.
00:39:52
Speaker
Yeah. And that applies to everything. That applies to friendships. That applies to a working relationship down the road. That applies to potential romantic relationships down the road. Like what a gift. I always think that, like that's not worked to me to teach that to my kids. That's my delight as a parent to teach them that they have these feelings inside of their body that are valid. So it's not even necessarily just about protecting them specifically from like sexual abuse or something like that. It's also helping them with a whole bunch of other things in life is what you're saying. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So teaching them to tune in with their own bodies and to not disown that feeling. Like if we go back to that conversation, that will help them throughout their entire life.
00:40:36
Speaker
And teaching them about things like trusted, untrusted people, that's gonna help them with everything.
Fostering Confidence and Ongoing Conversations
00:40:40
Speaker
Like we're not just talking about sexual abuse here, we're talking about friendships. Like when a a friend tells you to keep a tricky secret about another friend that's mean, but your child has the language of like, oh, trusted people don't say mean things to each other. With my friend saying that to me, like what else is she saying? You know, we're we're teaching children to tune in with themselves. right And that's gonna help them with everything throughout their life. In bigger picture, like if if we say one of the most important things is helping kids learn that safe and uh-oh feeling inside of their body, what the bigger thing that we are doing is as we lead these conversations as the safe and trusted adults in the home, and we are willing to wrestle with difficult topics with our children, and a lot of the time that might mean that your child asks you a question, you're like, I don't quite have the answer yet, but I'm gonna think about it. you know You don't have to have all the answers right away, that's okay.
00:41:34
Speaker
You are teaching your child what it means to be in a safe relationship. You are respecting them. You are teaching them. You are willing to have a hard conversation with them. You are willing to listen to their opinion. You want them to tune in with their body. That relationship that they have with you and the way that they form that safety, they are going to learn that that's the blueprint for all their relationships throughout their life. And so not only are you protecting them from sexual abuse, but you are setting the stage for the type of relationship that they're going to expect from other people throughout their life. This conversation, sure, we're talking about body safety. It's so, so, so important, but really we're talking about how we're going to teach our child to have relationships throughout their life so that they're safe. Right. And that comes from you. Interesting. Well, I think that all makes sense. I feel like you answered all my questions well.
00:42:21
Speaker
Did I? I feel like I'm trying to think. I feel like there's a few points that I didn't quite get to today, but maybe I can get to a different time. So if, if anyone has questions on this topic, I mean, I'm always talking about body safety on nurtured first on Instagram. So you can feel free to send me a message there. If there's anything specific you want to hear more about. Even if you want another episode and you want specific topic covered, like we can, we can do that too. Yeah, because the, oh, the piece that we didn't get into. So we kind of ended this conversation in like that preschool, like early school age. But I think we we could have a part two about how we're going to have this conversation when kids start asking about sex and periods. And right this conversation does not stop. And I'll end on the note of just like I said, how it starts when your kids are babies, it's an evolving conversation. So body safety, consent, sex, this should never be a one time conversation where you're like,
00:43:13
Speaker
Okay, I taught them about trust in tricky people, you know, shake my hands of it. We're good. We've had the conversation. Even people like me who've had this conversation with their kids so many times, like we're having it over and over and over. And it's always from a calm and regulated place. A lot of the times it's done with play. Like that's why we created that body safety toolkit because a lot of the ideas there like make it really fun and feel like it's not scary for kids. It's not meant to be something that scares them. And often you as a parent, and we can do another episode on this sometime, have to tune in with a lot of your own scared or unsafe feelings that you have as you talk to your kids about this. That's probably a good one because I have more questions about that. Yeah. Well, thank you all for listening. I hope this was helpful and we'll talk to you in the next episode.
Conclusion and Call for Feedback
00:43:59
Speaker
See you. Bye.
00:44:04
Speaker
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode. We are glad that you are here. If you enjoyed today's episode and found it interesting, we'd really appreciate it if you'd leave a rating and a review. Scott and I actually sit down together and read them all. A five-star rating helps us share our podcasts and get these important messages out there. Thank you so much for listening and we can't wait to talk to you again next time.