Chatterbox Play: A Touching Experience.

The concept of good touch/bad touch can be difficult to explain to children.

Here’s two more play ideas to weave into everyday protective play.

Chatterbox: Make a chatterbox out of a square piece of paper (for instructions, click here). Most children know how to make one so ask the experts for assistance here! On the inside faces, include statements about good touch/bad touch. Children love a bit of rot so don’t make it all serious. Put something like, “You cuddled a koala and it pooped on you. / Boo Hoo, Poo Poo”. The aim is to get it into the child’s head that sometimes, good things turn to bad things and that it is okay to react when this happens.

Miming: When the children are bored and ask you what they can do, as a fun alternative to suggesting they clean their rooms, play a miming game, similar to Charades. Mime out a good touch that turns to a bad touch and then mime going to tell someone what has happened. The good touch/bad touch mime does not need to be around abuse. It could be greet kissing a friend who has very bad breath and the kiss turns into a breath holding session. If you choose to mime a cuddle that turns to a sexual touch please follow it up with a discussion about body ownership and the importance of telling someone what has happened.

If you would like to know more about Protective Behaviours and the BITTS model of Protective Play, click here.

If you have some protective play ideas, I'd love to hear them. Don't be shy, share them and help children and families all over the world.

Game Rules of Touch

In Good Touch Bad Touch we saw how sexual predators use everyday touch to trick, confuse and desensitize children. Flowers and animal activities were suggested as easy ways to help your children learn the sneakiness between good touch turning into bad touch.

Here’s another two super easy protective play ideas to weave into your everyday life. Remember that the more you protectively play, the better the chance that your child will not be hurt by those horrible people that try to trick them with touch.

Rule poster: Make up a poster collage that depicts good touches that turn to bad touches. Even an ice cream on a hot day leading up to a melted ice cream and a sad child is a great example of good touch to bad touch and is something that most children would be able to identify with. Draw a big red line through the middle of the collage, through the behaviours that are beginning to become suspicious, and tell your children that it is at this point that they must tell the person that they are going to tell on them. This is not tittle-tattling or dobbing. This is you protecting your children against the possibility of sexual abuse.

Traffic Lights: When teaching children colours many parents use some sort of reward system for when the child gets the colour right. If you show behaviours as traffic lights, where green is good touch, orange is suspicious or iffy “I’m going to tell” touch, and red is “No way! I’m telling now” touch, it is easy for them to remember that behaviours can change from go to stop. Reward your child for correct guessing of behaviours. A sticker, or a story, is better than a food reward as food and good nutrition is a child’s right, not a treat.

Related articles:
Understanding Protective Behaviors in keeping Children Safe
BITSS of Touch

Good Touch Bad Touch

Teaching through play works. Work is children’s play: their business. Business needs reinforcing on a daily basis or business begins to fail. So too with the business of protective play, reinforce the protection by playing everyday with the five important elements of the BITSS model of Protective Behaviours – Body Ownership, Intuition, Touch, Say no, and Support network.

Touch is a difficult area to play protectively with if you do not understand the subtle difference between good touch/bad touch. Child sexual predators use normal touch (good touch) to desensitize a child and move them toward accepting bad touch. It happens gradually and sometimes without the child even realizing what has happened. If someone pats your child’s shoulder in friendship, it may be acceptable. If that same someone tomorrow pats your child’s breast and claims it was a mistake, it is a warning sign that they are moving toward bad touch and that your child is allowed to react, to come and tell you.

Our natural environment is useful for teaching about good touch/bad touch. When we look at the early warning signs in nature, we have a better understanding of how early warning signs work inside of our body and how a situation can very quickly move from being good to being awful. Many nature based activities can be designed around the below two discussion starting points.

Flowers: As beautiful as some flowers may be, they have the potential to turn from a good touch to a bad touch. Use them as an example. Running up to smell a beautiful flower may result in being pricked by a thorn, stung by a bee, or getting a rash on your face from poison leaves or petals. Some people too can be tricky. They start off being nice but it's a trick. They end up hurting us with their words or touch. When the good touch turns to bad touch it is okay to come and tell someone.

Animals: Many parents warn children about patting dogs, “Be careful! That dog might bite”. This is a perfect example of good touch/bad touch. Use these teachable moments to explain that sometimes, good things can turn to bad things and that children need to watch for changes and know when to back away. If you are patting a cat and its tail starts flicking it is the cat’s early warning sign to us that it is unhappy. Your child is at risk of being bitten or scratched by the cat. People have signs in their behavior too. When people move to bad touch, back away from them and tell someone what has happened.

Can you share a game idea that you use to teach about good touch/bad touch? The more we share, the quicker all of our children stay safe.