God Made {All} of Me

Now that Trice is starting to be more involved in activities that don't involve me (tear!), I decided we needed to start gently talking to him about "safe touches." I'm sad that we live in a world where this is even necessary, but I just refuse to not educate him and empower him so that if he is ever in a yucky situation, he KNOWS he can talk to us about it. I don't trust many people with him, but sadly you just can't really trust a whole lot of people who seem trust-able anymore. The reality is, there are yucky people in this world (and I pray they never come near my children), but if they do -- I want him to know how to stand up for himself.

As always, I'm babbling and adding an unnecessary amount of commentary. I just wanted to share our approach to talking to our children about safe touches. Hopefully it can help start the conversation for you or you can add input into things that have helped you explain this somewhat awkward/sensitive topic with your child.

 We're pretty honest with Trice. We've always used to proper names for body parts. I don't really have any research on it, but someone once told me that predators often use "pet names" for body parts and by teaching your child the real names they won't be lured in by those. I just basically think there's no shame in our body parts and we can call them what they are. I won't lie -- this has put me in a couple super awkward situations -- but if you don't act awkward about it, I guess it doesn't seem as awkward. I'll share with you another day. Just kidding.. I won't. ;) Another thing that my family did when I was a child was to have a "word" that you used if you were in danger. Obviously you might be in a situation sometime where saying "HELP!" is going to cause you more harm so we had a "password" that you could use if you needed mom or dad to come help right away. We won't do this for Trice quite yet because he'd probably just tell everyone what it was and say it all the time leading to a lot of false panic attacks .. but later on it will definitely be something we discuss.

Our church is selling the book God Made ALL of Me by Justin S. Holcomb & Lindsey A. Holcomb. It has been an excellent resource for us. We try to use Christian-based lessons as much as possible so I was excited when our youth pastor brought it up. Nick and I read through it a few times before reading it with Trice so we could change any wording or omit any parts that we didn't feel were appropriate for his level of understanding and just so we could predict some questions he might ask and be armed with answers. Honestly, the first time I read it to him .. he said nothing. I think he asked for a snack actually. But since then it has really opened up lots of conversations about our bodies and our choices. I really like how the book emphasizes that God made ALL parts of our body and ALL parts are good. There is no shame - I feel like we sometimes mislead children into thinking they should be ashamed of those "private parts" when really God made those, too. It also touches on secrets vs surprises. This is something we've really been focusing on even before we got this book. We do NOT have secrets in our house. We've really had to educate loved ones (er..papa) on not telling Trice, "It's our secret. Don't tell mom and dad" because that's the LAST thing we want Trice to think. We want him to know he can ALWAYS tell us ANYTHING and we'll listen and he won't be in trouble for telling us. Obviously this was innocent like he got a drink of lemonade or something, but it's the principle.. it talks about how surprises are okay (those are things like making a Birthday present). 

Anyway, if you're looking for a way to approach this topic with your child, I encourage you to look into this book. It may or may not be the right fit for your child (each child is different and only you know what they will respond best to). Let's just all say a quick prayer that our sweet, innocent children will never ever have to endure such evil acts in their lifetime! If you have any other resources or things that have helped you discuss "safe touches" with your children, I'd love to hear them!