So how would you say… Well, you actually answered it, but let’s just highlight how this has been such an aid for you. You want to expand a little bit on how that has assisted you to assist others?

Sure. Well, I do presentations in schools and in groups where parents gather as well as youth organizations where staff, people who work with kids gather. What I’ve noticed over my decades of doing this work is that people enter the room often very tentative, sometimes shy, sometimes unable to give eye contact to me or to others. They sit in their chair with their head down, and there’s a lot of discomfort. That’s what I read of people. There’s discomfort, and my workshop is four hours long, which sounds like a long time, and it often feels like that to people when they’re registering before they attend. But it really is a journey from that discomfort from the moment people enter the room to four hours later when they leave, where they are so ready to move forward and feel empowered. All that fear shifts from the fear to, “Okay. I have the hands-on, tangible things that I can do with my children and their caregivers daily to minimize my child’s risk.” So yeah.

That’s powerful because of the nature of the topic. It feels like we are as parents powerless until we are informed and have information.

Right, and you are not. I mean, we can’t promise anyone that by using the concepts that I teach, their child will not experience sex assault. Nobody can promise that, but what I know from the research I’ve done and from the many conversations I’ve had with people who molest children, men and women both, is that a child’s vulnerability decreases when there are adults around a child who are informed, who have taken the steps to educate themselves about how this happens, and who discuss body safety with their children, and most importantly, have those conversations about body safety with adult caregivers.

I’ve learned that over the years over, and over, and over that by talking about sexual assault with your child’s babysitter, their coach, their grandfather, other children in your family, cousins, everyone that spends time with your child, by keeping this conversation as alive as an allergy that your child has reduces risk because offenders don’t want attention on themselves. If you’re talking to a caregiver about the fact that your child doesn’t keep secrets, and their body belongs to them, and no one is allowed to touch their genitals, and my child has permission to give and receive hugs and kisses, and no one gets to force them, if these topics are as regular as, “Here’s my car seat. What time do you need to be home?” if you’re talking to a babysitter, whomever it is, then we can really reduce the risk in children’s lives, if that makes sense.

Yes, it does. It does, and I know for myself and my own experience with molestation as a child that when I became an adult, I thought I… even before I became an adult, I thought I was the only one like it was scary. It was from the very person that I was most to trust.

Right.

A parent, right? So when we look at this and we open up this conversation, we want to look at how we can have the tools to recognize and prevent, and even recognize the grooming that precedes the actual sexual abuse that comes, and that’s what going to talk about when we come back from the break and Feather has some wonderful things to share here. So you’ve been listening to our podcast, which is keeping children safe from sexual abuse. Feather, would you please restate your website where you would like people to find you?

Sure. It’s parentingsafechildren.com.

Beautiful. So hang with us. We are going to be right back, and when we come back, we’re going to dive into some information that will likely assist you even today.