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There are many skills your child can learn from you to help them stay safe. Giving them these skills before they reach puberty is your responsibility. Even if your child’s school has a good program about keeping safe, don’t rely on the school to do it for you. Parents are the first and most important teachers, and your child needs to learn about keeping safe from you.

Try some of these suggestions:

• Teach them that the private parts of their body are special and that no one can look at or touch those parts without their permission.
• Help them identify at least one early warning sign. These are the first ways our bodies tell us that we are not feeling safe. They are physical sensations. Examples of early warning signs are: their legs feel like jelly, their throat feels tight and dry, their heart starts pounding or their stomach feels funny.
• Use fairytales to talk about early warning signs. For example you may be telling the story about ‘The three little pigs.’ You could ask “How does the little pig feel when the wolf is outside huffing and puffing and trying to blow the little pig’s house down? What are his early warning signs?”
• Help them identify people they know they can trust. They could be in the family, at their preschool or school, or in the community. These are the people to talk to if they are worried or in trouble.
• As your child goes through puberty they need to have other trusted adults they can talk to. At this age it becomes more difficult for a father to fill this role with his son. Make sure boys know other men care for them throughout their lives - an uncle, or coach, a male teacher, or a family friend.
• Find out what sexuality education your child’s school is providing and see what you can do to support it. Young people need to have the confidence to enjoy early sexual feelings without going on to have sexual intercourse. Sexuality education at puberty will help them do this.
• You could take action to support sexuality education at your school. You may also be in a position to develop policies that address sexuality issues.
• Don’t withdraw the natural affection and intimacy that you share with your child for fear of unfairly being accused of sexual abuse.
• Don’t expect your child to kiss, hug or sit on someone’s lap if they don’t want to.