The Stop it Now organization held a Webinar today entitled "Awareness to Action What adults can do to prevent Childhood Sexual Abuse". Although I wasn't able to listen to it in it's entirety, I caught a bit of it at the end. A common theme was boundaries - making sure that we help to create and respect appropriate boundaries for our children. Boundaries such as privacy when dressing, bathing, sleeping or physical contact such as kissing, hugging and tickling. As adults we need to respect our children when they say "No" to such things and teach them that it is appropriate to do so. As an example, when I'm tickling Diana to craziness, and she says stop it! I need to respect that - because it shows her that when she says stop it, or No - that she is establishing a boundary, and that boundary will be abided. Something to think about - especially when I try to get her to kiss or hug people she really doesn't want to kiss or hug ( A handshake would do fine!). As she said to me once "It's my Body, mommy, - My Rules". She's right..
Other things that were discussed were that we should be suspicious of people keeping secrets with our children, or wanting to spend allot of time with them. It's okay for an adult to spend time with our children - but make sure that you are supervising. Also, the discussion with our children about touching, and personal boundaries is an ongoing one - it's not just one "Big Talk". ( as I discovered in a previous post).
Most importantly, if we work on changing the norms so that boundaries are respected, and that we call people on their behaviour when breaking these boundaries we are able to create change. It will become the norm.
When they publish the Webinar, I'll be sure to share the link! Definitely interesting information - and check out their site!!
~ Suz
Thanks for sharing!
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