I’m super excited about a new series of posts that I’ll be doing!
I’m going to create a series on Instagram about body safety rules that caregivers can teach children. There will be several posts for each rule - about half by me, and the rest from fabulous instagram accounts committed to reducing child s*xual abuse.
A few things before we get started!
It’s important for caregivers to understand that knowing body safety rules does not make children SAFE from abuse, it makes them SAFER from abuse. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do that will keep a child 100% safe.
Additionally, it’s important to state (and restate, and restate again) that it is *not* a child’s responsibility to prevent abuse. It is the responsibility of the adults in their life. Teaching children these body safety rules does *not* make them responsible. Instead, teaching these rules is one of many tools in ADULTS’ toolbox to help keep children safe.
I’ll be reiterating this several times over the course of the series because it is ESSENTIAL to understand. When we give children prevention tools, we do not give them prevention responsibility. This can be particularly confusing with body safety rules around consent. I will do my best to provide the appropriate nuance as well as reference posts by other instagrammers such as @victims4transformation who do an excellent job explaining this.
Because it is adults’ responsibility to keep children safe from abuse, the body safety series begins with a series of posts on the Safety Circle - a small group of adults that a child trusts.
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