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CW: Sexual abuse, grooming, sex-related topics
After hearing news about a case of sexual abuse in their community, Jess and Scott are sitting down and answering listener questions about how to talk to kids about body safety and consent in a way that won't scare kids and will protect them.
They provide practical advice for parents on how to have age-appropriate conversations about consent, private parts, and safe/unsafe touches without instilling fear. Some of the specific topics they address include:
* At what age you should start having these conversations
* The power of using anatomically correct terms with children
* How and why you should create a "safe team" of trusted adults for your children
* Jess' opinion on sleepovers and unsupervised playtime
This episode equips parents with essential tools to empower and safeguard their children while preserving their innocence.
Learn more about supporting kids with body safety, big feelings, and so much more from our Nurtured First blog [https://nurturedfirst.com/blog/].
If you want more resources to teach your child about body safety and consent, check out The Body Safety Toolkit! [https://nurturedfirst.com/printables/the-body-safety-toolkit/]
Get 10% OFF parenting courses and kids' printable activities at Nurtured First [https://nurturedfirst.com/courses/] using the code ROBOTUNICORN.
We'd love to hear from you! Have questions you want us to answer on Robot Unicorn? Send us an email: podcast@robotunicorn.net.
Learn more about the Solving Bedtime Battles course here [https://nurturedfirst.com/courses/solving-bedtime-battles/].
Credits:
Editing by The Pod Cabin [https://thepodcabin.com/]
Artwork by Wallflower Studio [https://www.wallflowerstudio.co/]
Production by Nurtured First [https://nurturedfirst.com/]
Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
Hey, on today's episode we are talking about something pretty serious.
So I just wanted to give you a content warning.
Today's episode touches on topics related to child sexual abuse.
So
if that is going to trigger you in any way.
Maybe today's episode is not the one for you to listen to, and maybe at a different time you can.
But we want to give you fair warning before you just join in and listen.
Welcome to Robot Unicorn.
We are so glad that you are here.
Alright, to be honest I don't really know how to start this one.
Okay, maybe I'll preface this one.
Yeah.
So the end of last week I saw a news article about a local school in the area, and a principal was arrested for
sexually assaulting an eleven year old girl until the age of fourteen.
And the police think that it's not just one girl that he did this to.
So w I know we talked about like other things that we wanted to discuss, but we felt like this was probably a good thing to discuss.
Yeah, I think it's important to just
Be mindful that we're gonna be talking about sexual abuse and assault and consent and all those related topics today.
So if that's something that might feel triggering or like not the right time to listen to, this episode maybe is not for you right now
Yep.
We think it's a really important episode, especially given in our personal lives the conversations that have been happening ever since we read that article and a lot of people that we know know
Yeah, it's a small community, so we kind of like we know we don't know who it is, but we know people who are relatively close to the situation too, right?
So it's Yeah, we know people who are like impacted in various ways.
Scott and I have just been thinking we obviously have three daughters around that age.
Yep.
It's just a good conversation to have.
So what I did yesterday was I told you not to go on the stories.
Yep.
of the Robot Unicorn account on Instagram.
And then I just asked people for their questions about body safety and or about puberty or whatever.
Most of them were about body safety.
So w we'll s kind of focus on that.
We can do another one on how to talk to kids about
Maybe they're changing body in a different episode.
Yeah.
But this one is specifically it seemed like most of the questions were related to body safety.
Okay.
We'll say.
This situation, for whatever reason, there's very few things in life that like enrage me so much as hearing someone taking advantage of kids.
Like I said to you, I'm pretty sure if it happened to our girls, like I would end up in prison too because of how I would deal with it
I feel like I've noticed in you that you've been really kind of triggered since reading this article.
Yeah.
On Friday.
It honestly enraged me when I first read it.
Yeah.
That someone especially like a principal of a school would do that.
I don't know.
It
I mean it doesn't matter who it is, but it's like a person in a position of power that takes advantage of kids.
This Q and A is gonna be really important because one thing we can control is equipping our kids.
Yep
That's important.
Okay.
I'm not necessarily gonna ask these in any particular order, but I didn't want you to be like a hundred percent prepared and like
have a script written out for any of these.
So we'll just kinda go through a bunch of the questions and say a lot of them were kind of related to each other.
Yeah.
So I can boil them down to probably three or four questions in total.
I would say the biggest question that people had, and I also wonder this a little bit too, I have a certain way of dealing with these kinds of topics with our girls, but what people
have asked is how do you discuss the idea of body safety and consent with your kids and basically not terrify them
So they're like constantly anxious about literally anyone that's out there and like they trust no one and maybe they should trust no one.
I don't know.
But how do you have this conversation with them?
And let's say our oldest daughter, she understands things significantly better now.
She has a good handle on
things in life.
So when we have that discussion, like I talked with her about it yesterday at length, I can see how people would be concerned about their kids all of a sudden looking at every adult as though they're gonna take advantage.
Like I remember that as a kid.
You'd have someone walking down the street and all of a sudden I'd be terrified and running in the house and locking the door.
Because for whatever reason in the 90s when you were a kid, well maybe even earlier than that, 80s and 90s, like people were telling their kids that there's kidnappers everywhere
Yeah.
Stranger danger, right?
So how do you teach kids that not everyone is safe and you are allowed to say no if someone
touches you and you should bring it up to someone if they do and like how do you have that conversation with them and then at the same time not
freak them out about every single person that's out there.
Yeah, so I feel like that is one of the most common questions I get, right?
We're so scared of taking away a kid's innocence or scaring them.
And at the same time we want to have these conversations.
So
What I would first off suggest to parents is to be very mindful about their own tone and their own energy that they're bringing into the conversation
Right.
So when you approach a child to talk about body safety, and this happens to a lot of parents, and they're fearful, so you're coming to your child because you just heard
Some story like what Scott and I just shared, right?
That was actually a secondary, kind of a related question that a lot of people added into it.
So it was like part one was how do you make sure you have this conversation with your kids?
So that they're not terrified of everyone.
And at the same time, a lot of them were asking, how do I make sure I'm not terrified of everyone that my kids are with?
Right, absolutely.
So those are those were the questions that people were asking
Yeah, because it is scary.
And as an adult, you hear a story about a principal sexually abusing a girl and you're just like, I can't trust anyone
Right.
So you're bringing that energy into that conversation with your kid.
And I have seen that a lot with parents.
They're like, I'm trying to teach my kid body safety, but I feel so not calm and I feel like my child's taking on that energy.
And I think that that is a real thing.
So
The first thing I would say to the parent is don't approach this conversation with your child when you're activated.
It's like you're feeling that heat in your body, that energy, that franticness to keep them safe.
that's a time for you to discuss with another adult how you're feeling.
So for example, when you read that article and you're just feeling a lot of feelings about it, that's not the time to go to our oldest and be like, oh my goodness, this
this thing happened with this principle and you know like that's not the time.
Well I think she even asked when we were talking about it and I said I would talk with her about it later.
Later.
Yeah, later when you're calm.
Yeah.
And it's a calm, quiet moment.
And I think
Parents sometimes do you feel this forensicness to like get this information to your kids?
Right.
Like I have to teach them about body safety and consent
So then we just say it in passing or we say it when we're feeling frazzled and that will create that energy in your child to be like, oh
my parents freaked out about it, now I'm freaked out about it.
Right.
So I would say that's just a one really simple thing.
Like just like you would teach them about all sorts of other things.
When you're teaching them body safety, try and have yourself calm first.
Okay, so then the way I did it yesterday was probably the right way to do it.
Yeah.
Because I was quite factual about it with her.
Mm-hmm.
And try to explain a bit of the nuance so that she's not worried about literally every person that's out there.
Yes.
Well that's good to know.
Please keep going.
Yeah, exactly.
So how you did so what Scott did yesterday, Scott and I were having a conversation
about it.
Oh, we've been talking about it for like the past four or five days.
Like we've been talking about it a lot.
And then of course we don't realize
our older daughters listening.
So that's actually on us.
Something I would suggest to parents, including ourselves, is to be more mindful of the conversations you're having in front of your little ones, right?
So that is on us that we are having a conversation and we weren't being mindful that little ears were listening.
Because that can instill fear.
Like I remember hearing my parents talk about some different things when I was even a kid or a teen, and when you don't have context about it.
It can start to feel really scary to you, right?
And I know you've had similar experiences overhearing conversations you shouldn't have as a kid.
Yeah, for sure.
Now, would you say like I don't know, for whatever reason our kids, or at least the two older ones, have no problem asking us.
about everything.
Like if they hear us talking about something and we say, hey, we will tell you, but you have to just ask us later at a different time.
Like I told our oldest last night, I'll tell you before I we go to bed and we'll have a conversation about it.
Do you think that you were one to ask?
Follow up on those things?
Because I find that she's very good at actually doing that.
So she has that personality and her middle daughter kind of feels the same, maybe a little bit less.
I feel like she's a little bit less
I feel like our middle daughter's a little bit more like how I would have been as a kid, like overhear it, stress out about it for quite a while, and then she'll probably bring it up to us.
But she's also three years younger.
Yeah.
So is it fair?
I think you're comparing our oldest, who's seven, getting closer to eight, and a four-year-old.
Right.
Right.
So that that's quite a bit of difference in cognitive abilities, even just how they've developed over those
Three, four years.
Right.
So either way, but the key message is like if you think your child's overhearing your conversation, tune back in with them, be like, hey, did you hear us talking about something?
Do you have any questions about that?
Like don't just let that linger if you think that little ears may have been listening in to a conversation about something like this.
Again, back to the original question, if you don't want to scare them.
Yep.
Right.
So just be mindful of what they overhear, be mindful of the tone that you bring it to them.
And then something else I would say to parents is I think we can get really caught up on the red flags
And it is important we can talk about what the red flags are.
Like we tell kids, you know, if anyone touches you without your consent, you know, you have to say something to us.
That's important to tell our kids.
But we're not necessarily saying like what are the things that safe people do?
Exactly.
So I would say if you don't want to scare your kids, again you can focus on what safe people do and how you feel around safe people
So I remember one time I was sitting next to our daughter and she was snuggling up on me on on the couch.
This is our oldest, and we're watching a show, we're drinking hot chocolates together, and I just said to her, How do you feel in your body right now?
And she goes, I feel so cozy.
She said, good.
Like take note of this safe and cozy feeling, right?
This is a good feeling.
Is that what you said?
Yeah, I did.
You know I said that.
Okay.
That's good.
I said, take note of the safe and cozy feeling.
And I said, who else makes you feel safe and cozy?
And she lists off, oh, grandma, papa, one of her aunts.
You know, she's listing off people that made her feel safe and cozy
And I think when we're having these conversations about body safety, we can do both.
So we can teach kids what it feels like to be safe and cozy in your body.
And then on the flip side, you can teach them what it feels like to not feel safe and cozy in their body, their uh oh feeling.
That's what I call it.
And so do both.
And then that helps your child not just be scared all the time, but also know that there are good people out there that do want to make them feel safe and cozy.
Right.
So I think we can do both and that balance can help make it not a conversation that's rooted in fear.
Yeah, okay.
I can understand that.
So one other common theme in these questions was what age do you actually start having these conversations?
Because in this situation we're talking about child sexual abuse with this local school.
So when is uh an appropriate age to start talking about that kind of thing with your kids?
Like private versus public settings, the different parts of body safety and consent.
When do you have
each of those discussions.
Yeah.
I mean I feel like when we grew up it was this one time conversation that you have with your parents if you have it at all, right?
It's like, okay, we're gonna have the sex talk and it's a one-time conversation.
And that's kind of like
You've had this big talk.
Not different though from like the sex talk is different from body safety talk, isn't it?
I mean they're maybe somewhat related, but I d I don't know.
Like I find that body safety is a different discussion
I see it differently.
I see it as just this evolving conversation that might eventually turn into the sex talk and we were gonna do a whole separate episode on puberty and that
sex talk and all of that.
But I see it as people are like, when do I start having this conversation?
I think you start having the conversation early on when your children are babies.
So when they're babies, your purpose is just to get yourself comfortable having these conversations, right?
saying anatomically correct names, saying things like penis, vulva, vagina, all of those things that make parents feel so uncomfortable because a lot of parents don't even feel comfortable using those words.
So in the baby age, you're just you're naming anatomically correct names.
You might even stand up for your baby if you have older kids, right?
And they're touching.
You might be like, oh, notice how the baby's pulling away
They don't want touch right now.
Right?
So you're starting to narrate out when you're Yeah, I guess even with like our toddler, we're saying that to the older girls when they try and hug her and she's saying no.
Yeah, right.
So when our toddler's like, No, no, no, no hug
Like, oh notice how she's pulling away and she's saying no, that means she doesn't want to hug right now.
So you can start narrating out simple
Acts of body safety inside of your home, right?
Or like even within yourself.
Like, oh, right now I don't want to be touched
And that's okay.
I'm allowed to say no to a touch too, right?
So just narrating that out in your home, I would start that with the baby age.
Okay.
Then you move into the toddler age.
Now you're teaching your child the anatomically correct name for their own body.
That's a great way to protect them.
So I feel like a lot of parents are worried about doing that though.
Because they're worried their kids are going to go out in public and start just yelling, Volva, penis, whatever.
Like they're just gonna start yelling these terms out.
Right.
And that's not necessarily a question I received, but I just know in the past.
We've received a lot of questions on like, well, what if our kids are just all of a sudden yelling all these things out and that's not appropriate for public settings?
Yeah
Two things.
So first, if you start using anatomically correct names early on and you talk about a penis the same way you talk about a knee
the same way you talk about a foot, you're not gonna have that situation happen because your child in their mind is just the name of a body part.
It's not that big a deal
You know, and that's kind of the tone that we want to take, right?
It's just another body part.
Yeah.
If we start making it a big deal and our children start noticing that there's a sense of
my parents are uncomfortable with this word, so it's funny and it's silly.
And when I say it really loud, it makes my parents uncomfortable, then they're gonna do that because it's So what you're saying is I'm not helping because I'm actually laughing when the girls are
Absolutely you're not helping.
Yeah.
When the girls yell those things out.
Right.
And I I hear that from parents all the time, like oh my goodness, my son is saying penis over and over and in front of my parents and it's so embarrassing and I keep telling them to stop.
And I just say to them, just make it boring.
Be like, Yep.
I guess that's the name of a body part.
Like just keep it so boring and your child's gonna learn, oh, it's just the name of a body part.
I don't need to scream and yell it out.
But I think our own perception that that's bad or that's a sexual word or we shouldn't be saying that in front of other people and then our energy of like, stop, stop, don't say that, that's not okay makes kids who love
to get attention and love to get a reaction out of their parents want to keep saying it.
So my advice would be just keep it boring.
Yeah you're right.
You do have a penis.
Yep.
Okay, that's interesting.
And we don't have to worry about that reaction.
I think we over worry about our kids doing that.
And so what if they yell penis in the middle of a grocery store?
Like I our kids have yelled vulva.
Why vulva
Something, something like in the middle of a star.
She's like, yeah.
Do you have a Volva?
You know, just when you can't get the colour, you can't get it.
The problem is me actually.
I'm just giggling in the corner.
Oh, and Scott's the problem.
Because he's giggling.
He's he's like the still a seven-year-old boy who thinks these words are funny.
Yeah, but it's not like I'm embarrassed by them saying it right now.
I just think it's funny.
I just think it's funny that a little kid has no idea
what people think of those words.
Because a lot of adults are pretty uncomfortable with those words and I just I think it's funny that this little innocent child
Right.
I'm sure people will relate to you finding that funny.
But I want to go back because
we were talking about the different ways to teach body safety and how that conversation evolves over time.
So I was saying that in the toddler years you can start teaching the anatomically correct names.
you can start continue to narrate out when they don't want to be touched and really respecting that.
So if they don't want a hug from you, it's like, yep, that's okay.
It's your body.
You're the boss of your body.
If you don't want a hug, that's fine
Right, we start to say those words to our toddlers and teach them early on that it's okay for them to say no to a hug.
It's okay for them to say no to touch.
And also standing up for them in front of their other siblings.
I know we have three kids and often the older two will want to hug the toddler or kiss her and it's like, No, just because she's little and you can force it on her And you think she's cute.
And you think she's cute.
It doesn't make it okay.
When she's saying no, that's a no.
And so I know I'm very firm on that in the house.
Yeah, I know, like even last night, our youngest, she loves getting tickled, especially under her chin.
She giggles so much.
And then at a certain point
It's all done.
All of a sudden it's no, no, and then we have to stop.
And that's hard for our other girls because they find it to be so cute when she's giggling like that.
Right, so they wanna keep tickling and ticket.
But then we have to teach her like she likes it up to a certain point and then after that, once she says no, then we have to stop
Mm-hmm.
So have a rule in your house that when someone says no or stop, your hands go up.
I teach that rule on the Nurtured First Instagram page all the time
Right, so just have a rule that everybody knows as soon as someone says no to tickles or hugs or whatever, you just put your hands up.
I've I've never heard that one.
Oh well.
You should f follow my page.
Apparently you need to follow nurtured first.
But yeah, I've I've taught that one quite a few times.
It's a really good rule because
kids can remember to put their hands up, right?
And then even with play fighting or rough housing, it's just it's a good idea to have that rule in place ahead of time.
So that's the toddler age.
Now you're moving to preschooler age, right?
Your child might be going to daycare or school for the first time.
I would start to have a little bit more discussions with them about
private parts, right?
So your mouth, your vulva or penis, your bum, your anus, like those are all private parts and no one can touch those parts.
unless you need help, right?
So sometimes kids might need help in the bathroom or it's us.
And I start to have those discussions.
I know it's not like they get it right away, but like
around three, three and a half.
That's when you start.
Yeah, that's when I'm starting to have those because that's when they're starting to understand, right?
And they're maybe going to the bathroom on their own at that point.
and they're away from you.
And so we should start having those discussions.
And you start giving them the words of like, if someone tries to touch my body or my private parts, I'm gonna tell mom and dad or I'm gonna tell this safe person.
I even notice in our middle daughter, if someone's in her personal space, she's pretty good about getting them to back off.
Yeah.
And you can teach and roleplay it.
I think we underestimate the power of roleplay.
I love to roleplay out things with the kids, right?
Yeah.
And I'll be like, okay, so what if I'm this person and I say, I want to touch your bum?
What are you gonna do?
Right.
And so then we'll role play out the different scenarios of what they could do.
They could run away, they could scream really loud, they could say, Stop, it's my body, you're not allowed to touch me.
And reminding your kids always of who their trusted people are
Right.
Everyone has a different circle of people that they trust as parents.
And that's hard because you're trusted people.
Like in this scenario, you would hope a principal would be a trusted person.
I was just gonna ask that because the problem with it is
You have this situation where a principal should be a trusted person, yet they are the issue.
How do you teach them that like even though someone's a leader, like someone's in charge?
Doesn't necessarily mean that you can trust them.
Like how do you help them differentiate that?
I think you can say just that.
Just because someone's your teacher or your principal or your camp leader or whoever.
That doesn't mean that they're your trusted person that you're gonna come to.
That doesn't mean that they are bad people, but our trusted people are people that we know deeply and that know us.
Yeah.
So then I I would have if you can, not everybody has five people, but I I have it I think in the toolkit I have kids draw out their hand.
And then they write a person on each finger.
So then you can have your five people and be like, these are your five people that you go to if anyone ever tries to touch you without your consent.
If someone doesn't listen, you go to the next person on your team.
And I think that phrase, I was talking to someone whose child was abused at a camp and they went to one person on that five safety team, and that person didn't listen
So the child was like, Well, I went to someone, they didn't listen, so I guess I just have to keep dealing with this.
That's terrible.
Yeah, it was awful.
Awful situation.
So teach your children, keep telling people until someone listens to you.
If the first person doesn't listen, tell the next person.
Tell the next person.
You deserve to be listened to if someone is touching your body in a way that is without your consent.
And anyone who does that deserves to be in jail for life.
I have no pity for anyone who does that kind of stuff.
I don't I feel like the rage just building up.
Yeah, I know
Well, this yeah, this camp that was another situation, right, where it was the leader.
Again, someone that you should be trusting.
Yeah.
It was the leader who was doing the abusing, right?
So
the child thinks, oh, well when I'm at camp, my leader is my safe person.
Well if your leader is the one doing the abusing, then they're not your safe person.
Right.
Hey friends, so at pickup last week, our daughter asked Scott a truly kind of tricky question in front of her younger siblings.
Scott was telling me that when he heard a question like this, he used to panic, but this time he had a plan and he said
To our daughter, thank you for asking.
Let's talk tonight when we've got privacy.
And that's a line that he learned straight from our new body safety and consent course at Nurturture First.
So this new body safety and consent course is taught by me.
So
Jess, if you listen to this podcast, you know me.
I'm a child therapist and a mom of three, and I have taught body safety and consent education for years
This course takes all my years of experience teaching this education and gives you calm, age-appropriate language for body parts, consent, and boundaries.
You'll learn how to teach your kids that no means no, you'll learn how to teach them to read facial cues, you'll talk about safe and unfortunate.
safe touch and you'll even teach them about their uh oh feeling.
There's guidance inside this course for the real life stuff like tickling that goes too far and even the difference between a secret and a surprise
We made this course at Nurture First because research shows that body safety education helps kids speak up sooner and we want that for our family, for Scott and I, but also for you.
So check the course out at nurturedfirst.
com slash body safety and to save 10% use
the code robot unicorn and just full disclosure here we are the creators of this course and we're so proud of it
Okay, so that is Preschool to school age.
Yep.
And then like I would really keep those conversations fresh too in your kids' head.
Like I feel like I at least once a week we're having a little bit of a body safety discussion.
And then as you move to school age and then your child's getting a little bit older, you might start to have a little bit more of those advanced discussions, right?
Because I had with Like the one you had last night.
And maybe you can
talk about well I know people love when you roleplay.
Maybe we can roleplay out that discussion a little bit.
I had like four messages this week being like, we haven't heard a roleplay in a while.
Tell Scott that we miss it.
And the problem is well I saw
Was it someone on the robot unicorn page was saying something about uh I I love it when Scott does that, but I would never do it.
Yeah, exactly.
I know.
He's like I would never do it, but Scott, like when you do it, it is nice.
Um So thank you for putting me through this
But I would start to have those uh more advanced discussions because your kids are gonna start overhearing things, you know.
Right.
As they get into school.
They're gonna have questions for you.
Kids are having more advanced discussions with each other too.
They hear things from their peers.
They overhear things from us.
They overhear something on a TV show.
Oh, what's that?
You know?
Yeah.
So follow your children's lead always.
If your child has a question for you, because if they have a question for you, let's say our child says, you know, what's sexual abuse.
to you.
I don't know what she said to you actually.
But let's say she said that No, that's not what she said, but Okay, but let's say she said that to you.
And you say, Oh, I I don't want to answer that.
She still has the question.
So then where does she go next?
Right.
Right?
And who else is she asking
And what I always advise parents on, whether that's the puberty discussion we'll have in a later podcast or the body safety discussion, is you want to be the expert.
Like you want to be the person that your child goes to.
Because if they start asking you questions and you shut it down and you're not comfortable with it, they're gonna keep asking and then maybe they get the answers from the wrong people.
That sounds unrealistic to me.
Like in no world am I the expert on puberty, especially in girls, right?
So like that discussion, that's why we want to have another podcast.
I keep hearing things in the office.
I'm the only guy that works in this office and there's like discussions that you're have you're all having about You're surrounded by women all the time.
Yeah.
Different things and
Like you what was the one thing that period underwear.
Yeah, I'd never heard of that before.
And then also there's something in a bathroom stall that in the stalls?
Yeah, like the garbage can and the bathroom stall.
Well, wh how would I know that?
I'm never I've never been inside of a women's washroom, so then I would never know.
Yeah, he didn't know that there's like a special garbage can for like pads and tampods and then how would I know to say you need to be the expert I feel is a little bit unfair or unrealistic because at least in the puberty discussion, I know
next to nothing about okay so maybe expert's the wrong word but maybe the leader of the discussion.
So let's say our daughter comes to you and says
So daddy, what's a period?
And in that moment, you're like, ugh, it's earlier than I thought.
I'm not ready to have this discussion with you yet.
And you say, you know what?
Thank you.
Always say this.
Thank you so much for asking me.
I love that you asked me this question.
I am gonna get you the answer.
I just need a little bit of time to think about it.
But I'm gonna make sure that we have this discussion together.
Yeah.
That's the key to being the leader.
It's not that you have to have every single answer.
Okay, I feel like that's more realistic.
Like that's how I answer our girls if they ever have questions.
On anything, right?
Anything.
It's pretty rare
that I will not answer any question that they have.
And sometimes I'll be like, I actually don't know the answer to that.
And then I'll say
Give me a little bit and then I'll look it up.
We can talk about it after I've learned a little bit more myself.
Exactly.
And that's how you'll be viewed as the expert or the leader, right?
because you're willing to be like, thank you for asking me.
I don't have the answer quite yet, but I will get you that answer and we'll figure it out together.
Let's say it is the period discussion and you're a single dad and you're like, I don't have anyone that's gonna help me come up with this answer.
So you guys do research together or you read a book together or something like that
just to show your child you can come to me for the answers.
And I'm not so uncomfortable.
So whether that's the body safety conversation to I'm not so uncomfortable that I'm gonna shut this down.
Yep.
'Cause I think historically if something's been uncomfortable or tricky
We've been like, mm, shut that down.
I don't want to talk about that because I'm too uncomfortable.
Right?
So that's the work we do as parents, which can be hard work.
I feel like I don't shy away from those kinds of things.
Like if the girls have any any question at all, it's not like I shy away from
Maybe the sex discussion when we end up having like that discussion.
What if our oldest came up to you tomorrow and was like, Daddy, what's sex?
Right.
Would you have an answer for her?
No.
Right.
And that's okay, but you can't say, well, you're too young to know about that.
Right?
Like what would you say and that's what would you say?
Uh, that mom and I have to come up with a way to discuss this with you
Right.
Okay, let's roleplay this out.
Are we talking about consent though?
Right, but this is a this is along the lines, right?
So she hears you talking about sexual abuse.
Yeah
Right?
She overhears the conversation.
She's school age.
She's gonna be eight this year.
And so she says, Dad, what's sexual abuse?
I heard you and mommy talk about it.
Can you tell me what it is?
Mm-hmm.
I actually think we did have that we did talk about that last night in our discussion.
Honestly, the thing that I did with her last night is she asked me and I said, how about let's have this discussion when your siblings, like the other girls, are asleep
Right.
Or not around so that I can just have this conversation directly with you.
Because I feel like our middle daughter is too young to actually have that dis like
talk about that around her at this point.
I just told her, let's talk about it before you go to bed and we'll have a discussion about it.
And that's what we did.
That's my initial response was let's talk about this later tonight.
Yeah.
When no one else is around.
And that's fine.
Yeah.
And then what did you say to her when Well, I explained the situation with the principal and what happened and
She had a whole bunch of questions and I tried to answer all of them.
I would say the way I typically answer any question for her or for any of our girls is more with terms they'll understand.
And
Just kind of factually.
Like I explained the situation about this principal touching a young girl for several years, even though he wasn't supposed to.
And now he was arrested by police and whatever.
Anyways, I went through the whole story and then she had questions about like well wha how did he touch her and like
So what how to do response?
I said, well, I don't know, but it's not an appropriate thing for like we had the discussion about private parts and who can and cannot.
Touch your private parts.
Touch yeah, touch your private parts and all that.
And we had that whole discussion and then I tried to explain like this person did that, touch those parts.
of this girl and whatever.
Anyways, we had a long discussion about it.
Like it was probably 30 minutes that we talked about it.
And she just had tons of questions and I just tried to answer it factually
And in a way that hopefully would not scare her.
And then I had that I asked her at the like closer to the end, how do you feel about all of this?
And she's like
I feel really sad for that girl.
Yeah.
I was like, yeah, that makes sense.
And she's like, and I feel a tiny bit worried.
And then she had some reason for not like being super worried about it, but just like a a little bit.
Yeah, I think we can explain it to our kids like those kind of trickier conversations.
I'm telling this to you so that you know
That if anything like this were to happen to you or your a friend, that you would tell us right away so that it wouldn't happen for some.
Oh yeah, we had that discussion too about like it's important that you tell your parents.
We did actually roleplay out a bit and then I said, well, what if the person says they're gonna hurt your parents?
Because that's apparently a common thing that people in these positions will say.
And then she knows that she's allowed to lie in that situation and say, okay, I won't tell my parents, but then she will anyway.
Yeah.
That brings up another point as we're talking about the school age, like these older kids.
something it's really important for us to know as parents is like predators, groomers, what they're gonna say is things like, this is our secret.
They're probably gonna get your child to try and keep a secret first, like a small secret, right?
So
The no secrets rule we actually implement like early, early on, at like the age of three.
It's like we don't keep secrets in our home.
If someone asks you to keep a secret, tell it's right away.
Yep.
So then it's even something as simple as grandma asks them, like, don't tell your mom I give you a chocolate bar and the kids come.
Grandma said that she's not to tell you that we had a chocolate bar.
Uh that didn't even happen.
But you know like The Kids definitely tattle on
Everyone.
Yeah.
And that's okay, right?
Because in our home we don't keep a secret.
And then I will test the kids and I'll say, well what if someone tells you that
If you don't keep this secret, something bad will happen to mom and dad.
Because that is a common lie that a predator will say
And they'll be like, well, I'll still tell you right away.
Okay, well, what if someone says that if you tell mom and dad, everybody's gonna hate you and no one's gonna believe you?
Then what?
Right.
So I actually like to give the language to the kids that I know predators might say.
So things like, everyone's gonna hate you, you made this happen, it's your fault, that's common.
You need to keep this secret, something bad is gonna happen to your parents, something bad will happen to the school, all of those kind of things.
Like they try and twist it to make it feel like it's the child's fault.
And
People will say, well, how did this child keep a secret for five years or something like that, right?
Well, they keep a secret because they truly believe, because this predator has made them think.
that it is their fault.
Yeah.
Or I remember working with a kid who the predator in this situation had said, something bad will happen to your parents.
And I remember the parents being like, we taught them about body safety, right?
And the parents had in that situation taught this child about body safety.
But the child was so desperately trying to protect her parents that she didn't say anything.
Right?
So those are the types of things that we do also want to teach our kids so that they can identify that's a red flag
and that it's not their fault and that they still need to tell their trusted people.
Yep.
It's tricky.
Like it is so hard.
So how do you protect because I know this will be a question that people ask, how do you protect a child's innocence
and also have these discussions with them.
I know.
Right?
'Cause you're sort of I feel a little bit like especially for our kids
we're sort of bursting our oldest bubble that people are trustworthy and Oh I know.
Remember the other day when we were watching a movie and then it had a happy ending and she goes, Well, things always have a happy ending though, don't they, Dad?
Right.
And you were like, Yeah, we've had like Do they always have a happy ending?
We've had a bunch of discussions about that lately, and we went on a walk one day and she was asking about that and I was like, Well, in real life
Happy endings don't necessarily always happen.
Yeah.
That's not the reality for a lot of people in the world, right?
Like just because it happens in the movies, movies they want to make you feel a certain way, but in real life things don't work the same as a movie.
And anyways.
But I felt like I was kind of bursting a little bit of a bubble there.
I know, it kinda sucks.
Like you're like I want to preserve your joy and your innocence so long as possible, but I also don't want to make you naive and vulnerable.
So it's that balance
And I think it is it's a couple of things.
First it's making them feel so safe in your relationship, right?
So outside of these conversations, like don't be having these conversations twenty four hours a day.
No.
Right?
You know, what do I always say?
Tiny moments, like these tiny conversations.
It could be casual.
It's not always this big sit-down discussion.
No, right.
Sometimes it's exactly what I was talking about on the couch, right?
How do you feel in your body right now?
Oh cozy.
Yeah, okay.
So take note of the safe and cozy feeling.
That feels really good
have the like the tiny moments of these discussions instead of making it like an hour long conversation every single day with your child.
Balance it with fun and play and allowing them to be a kid and still like
You had this conversation with her last night and then five minutes later you guys are running around screaming, chasing each other, playing tag in the kitchen and driving me nuts, right?
Like so
Yeah, true.
Balance it.
Keep the innocence.
Keep letting them be children.
Keep the play.
Keep the rest.
Keep the silliness.
And also have these conversations.
But don't make these conversations
everything.
Yeah.
I think that's how you do it.
And I also like to remind parents that having these conversations with your kids
It might feel like it's taking away their innocence, but I like to see it as preserving their innocence for as long as possible because we're protecting them.
Yeah, that's a good perspective actually.
Yeah.
Never really thought about it that way.
Well, once again, I do post about that on Nurture First Game.
Good.
I should probably follow you, eh?
It's like you've never seen my page.
Well, that's okay
I learn something new every day on this podcast.
It's good.
You you shouldn't you shouldn't follow so that you can learn things for the first time on the podcast.
Even though I've been talking about them for like the last six years
I kind of want to go back real quick.
Yep.
The role play.
So we didn't really do a full role play.
But I kind of want to roleplay out how you could answer your child if you didn't have an answer right away
So why don't you ask me a tricky question and I'm gonna pretend to be a parent that doesn't have an answer to that question.
Just Well didn't we already do that?
I felt like we already d kinda did that.
Well I didn't give what I would want parents to say.
That's what I want you to do to be.
Oh I see.
I didn't do it quite right.
You you did it okay, but what I wanted to say about the role play that you had earlier is a couple things.
So if you don't know how to answer your child in that moment, you can take a pause.
You can come back to it later.
When you come back to it later and your child's asked you something like, what is sex or what is sexual abuse, start by asking your child what they already know
Because typically if they're coming to you with a question, they've overheard something.
So maybe they have an idea.
They're thinking about it.
And a lot of times, like
Mommy, what's a period?
What sex?
How is a baby made?
Like when they're asking you these questions, they have some sort of idea in their head about what it is.
And you want to get that out first, right?
Oh, where did you hear about that?
Tell me more about what you think that is
get that out so that if there's anything incorrect that your child has in their head, you can correct that and be factual about it.
Because otherwise sometimes then you tell your child, oh, this is what a period is, this is what sex is, this is what abuse is
But they still have that other idea in their head, right?
So that's the only thing I wanted to add to your role play earlier that might be helpful for parents.
Yeah, I think that makes sense.
Yeah.
Well, do you have any other final questions for Mary?
Yeah, I think the main takeaway we wanted from this episode was to help parents help prevent abuse in their kids, right?
And give them some really practical ways they can protect their kids from abuse.
And I feel like we've done that.
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of specifics like
discussing sleepovers and when to stop letting your kids be naked around the house and Okay well let's end maybe on sleepovers.
Sure.
'Cause I think sleepovers bring up like a bigger discussion of supervision.
Like one person asked, I loved sleepovers as a kid, but now they seem to be forbidden.
Essentially.
So why is that?
Wasn't it interesting this weekend when my parents were over and they were just like, uh I don't know if you should let your kids have sleepovers.
I thought that was so interesting seeing as
we were allowed to have sleepovers as a kid.
And then my mom was telling me one story about how there's one place I went for a sleepover and she couldn't sleep all night 'cause she was so worried about it.
And she's like
I felt like I was so naive up until that point and then you were there and I was like, should I go get her?
It's the middle of the night.
I just I don't know what's happening
And even my own parents were like, Eh, we don't love it for your kids, even though you did it as a kid, you know?
I think we just have more knowledge and awareness now and
Things like sleepovers and unsupervised time with other kids.
It's even like, hey kids, all you kids, go play in the basement and you know, don't come upstairs and bug the adults.
those are the times when things can really happen.
And so we do want to be mindful of that and even if that makes you not the fun parent, I would rather be not the fun parent than put my child in a potential risky situation.
So are you saying
What this person asked, that's accurate?
Like you would essentially forbid sleepovers?
I wouldn't forbid it.
I mean her daughter has done a sleepover, so
I would not forbid it, but I would be very cautious about it.
So for me personally, if my daughter's having a sleepover somewhere
I would want to know the parents very well.
I'd want to understand exactly what they're going to be up to during the sleepover.
I'd want to have previous interaction with the child
So I probably just wouldn't send her to a sleepover with a child at school.
Oh like with the child that she's sleeping over with.
Yeah.
With the child that she's sleeping over with, right?
Because I'd want to know what that child is like.
So in the example that
when our child did have a sleepover, we are A, very close friends with the parents.
Yeah.
So we know them super, super well.
B, we've had this child over to our house many times.
So we know the child
Very, very well.
Yep.
And we felt comfortable in order to let her sleep over there because we have that relationship with that family
And we've known them for several years at this point.
Whereas let's say it was just a random kid at school, it's not to say that there's anything wrong with that child or their family.
But we don't know the child, we don't know the parents, we don't know the situation.
So just to say, yeah, you know what, after school, head on the bus to their house and have a sleepover, which is maybe what we did as kids.
Well, I don't know, you probably didn't do sleepovers, but No, not really.
What many girls at least did as kids, I would not do that anymore.
You know, I would be very uncomfortable with that.
And even further, I think a way to help with that is we will be the house that kids can come to.
Right?
So if if our daughter wants to have a play date or a sleepover, I would love to be the home
that we have those things at so that it doesn't feel like, oh my parents are so scared.
I can't ever see friends.
I can't ever hang out with them.
And then as we are the home that has the friends over, once we start to get to know their parents and feel more comfortable
then hey, maybe it'll happen.
Maybe it'll happen, right?
So I wouldn't say I have like a blanket like sleepovers are forbidden.
Playing alone with your friends is forbidden because I do think that there is a piece of that that is some of the best parts of childhood.
But we do want to be the leaders in that as well.
And things like playing in the basement alone with friends that we don't know, having access to devices that we don't know about, you know, like
All of these different things can be risky.
Like even sleep over at a friend's house and the friend has a computer in their room and let's say they're gaming all night long and who knows what they get up to, right?
So
Those are the things that I would be very mindful of as a parent and just keep an eye on it.
Don't just take a step back and be like, oh, kids will be kids.
So that's my advice on that.
I don't know.
What do you think?
No, I think that that makes sense.
That seems logical to me.
It's not so black and white, right?
I feel like people are like, oh Jess, you're such a party pooper, you know, you don't let your kids do anything and you're no fun.
It's not that
Yeah, we're more cautious and we are aware that the world is not perfect, so we treat it as such, but we try and
arm our kids with knowledge that like you said will help preserve their innocence then for longer.
And sometimes I feel like it's hard 'cause
Let's say you grew up in an abusive home.
I'm a therapist who's worked with many children who have been in an abusive home.
So we have this very cautious lens.
Yeah.
Well, and for me too, I grew up literally trusting zero people.
Yeah.
So that's something that for my lifetime now will be something I have to work on is the ability to actually trust
Anyone else.
But when it comes to your kids, it's good to maybe err on the side of I need to get to know you before I trust you.
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Right?
Yep.
And this will be another podcast that we've talked about recording, but giving our kids a better life than we had.
Yeah.
That kind of that discussion and the nuance around that.
But I feel like that is we err on the side of caution to help make their lives even better.
Exactly.
And and like we said, preserve their innocence.
Yep.
So I think this is a good spot to wrap up
Yep, we covered a lot here.
Keep sending in your questions.
And like we mentioned a couple times, we do want to do a puberty episode, so send in your puberty related questions.
And thank you so much for listening.
And I just if you're feeling triggered like Scott was or kind of escalated, you know, try and take some deep breaths as you finish this episode.
Remind yourself that right now, you and your kids are safe.
Everybody's safe.
and we're doing this and we're teaching these tools to help continue that safety and preserve that innocence, right?
So just tune in with your body, take some deep breaths and just know that you're doing a really good job.
Thanks for joining us.
Thanks for listening.
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode.
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