Knowing how to teach sexual abuse prevention education means nothing unless there’s an opportunity to do so.
I am an advocate for sexual abuse prevention education, commonly known as body safety. I’m also the author of a children’s book on the topic: Some Secrets Should Never Be Kept. Today, with the sincerity of doing a good thing, I rang up two of my local kindergartens and offered a free body safety talk to their parent community. Disappointingly, my offer was met with a very lukewarm reception:
We’ll get back to you, if we are interested…
And of course, from the tone of the woman’s voice, I know they will not get back to me.
Here I was offering free of charge and in my own time an information session to parents on how to keep their children safe from inappropriate touch. I was treated by the Kindergarten teacher with polite hostility and I felt very much like a salesperson trying to push my wares. I am constantly shocked by educators and parents’ rejection of this simple but powerful message. The teaching of body safety to young children could be the difference between a life of possibilities and a life destroyed.
I do understand that this topic can be quite scary for educators and parents who have only ever heard about the sexual abuse of children via the media. And as more and more horrific stories appear on our many screen forms, the conversation around this topic is growing. In my opinion, this is a good thing. The more survivors who come forward, the more prevention is on everyone’s radar for this generation of kids.
Still, I have learned that when I approach educators and parents who do not work in the aftermath of childhood sexual abuse, I must call my advocacy “body safety” rather than “sexual abuse prevention education.” There is a good reason for this. Most parents, when I mention instructing kids in sexual abuse prevention education, say the topic makes them feel uncomfortable – “icky” is a word I have heard on a number of occasions. Equally, they are concerned their child will lose their innocence if this topic is broached. When I change tact and encourage them to teach body safety, I am met with less resistance. And when I mention the statistics – 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday and 93% will know their perpetrator – most folks are shocked. Yes, the sexual abuse of most children happens in their own homes and with someone they know and trust.
Body safety has a very simple message: Your body is your body and no-one has the right to touch it and if they do, you must tell someone you trust and keep on telling until you are believed.
Sex and the act of sexual abuse never enters the conversation. We teach water safety and we teach road safety, and when we do, no graphic details are ever mentioned. Similarly, when teaching body safety, the message is simple, non-threatening and it is safe!
So getting back to my lukewarm reception… I need your help. I need readers such as yourselves to view body safety as I do – as a non-threatening but crucial part of childhood safety education. People and organizations such as myself can’t do this alone. Please ask your schools and kindergarten if they are teaching body safety. If not, why not? I have a website full of free stuff’ on the topic. Please consider talking to other parents about teaching body safety. Believe me, teaching your child body safety is really not that hard at all. And you never know… your interest in the topic may filter down to those kindergarten teachers I approached. I’m hoping so.
Readers: If you’ve got any tips about how I can be met with less resistance I would love to hear them.
–Photo: premus/Flickr
Great article Jayneen. Thank you for your tireless efforts in getting this vital education program into schools and child care centres. Your wonderful book needs to be in every school, child care centre and library. You have made this confronting subject so much easier to speak about in such a sensitive manner and educators need to embrace it.
Hey Jayneen, I think what you’re doing is good, and I ‘d love to talk with you about how you’re currently presenting yourself and whether i can offer any suggestions. Sexual abuse IS something people are all too hesitant to talk about… right up until something happens and all the “what if’s” start pouring in. I tried googling you and can’t find your site with resources… or a way to contact you. Help?
Hi Melinda
Thanks for your support! My website is http://www.somesecrets.info looking forward to hearing from you!
I’ll share here that when I was junior-high age, a few boys repeatedly, off an on, jabbed me, poked me, socked me between the legs, stripped me, and taught words of misogyny. There was also, when I traveled at 15, ideal romantic experiences twice with boys my age and a young man about 20. A therapist later, a Ph.D. psychologist I liked, kept notes of our scheduled sessions. I read them twenty years later. In the notes, the psychologist had written “fondled” about the incidents I had described. Fondled and “inappropriate touch” are not words I think of or use.… Read more »
Ann, I am so sorry you experienced such horrific sexual incidents and assaults.
When we teach sexual abuse prevention we are dealing with very young children and fearful adults. The message is sensitive and non-threatening. It really has to be, so we can get our community to take that step and teach their kids body safety.
Jayneen, dear young children. Their parents are also a story. Things get to be and tend to be, even with right motives, engineered programs. Looking back on the 70s, I can see that in the schools I attended, nationally highly placed and public, that a sex education class for parents might have saved that day. They might have liked and wanted and wished for it but were not socially forward and felt caught between the old and traditonal and the new and liberating. The collision that came of it became pronounced as dangerous. Yet dangerous is only a part and… Read more »