CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary
Posted by Joelle Casteix on March 20, 2014
A breaking story today has kept my phone ringing off the hook: A southern California third grader has been accused of sexually assaulting a classmate numerous times during the past year. School administrators only found out about it when other students at an after-school program reported what they saw. (Kudos to those kids!)
Tragic? Yes. Horrifying? Yes.
Preventable. YES!
But fear, panic and over-reaction are not how to prevent this kind of abuse.
Remember: third graders know little to nothing about sex. For the victim in this case, authorities believe that he didn’t report because he didn’t even have the vocabulary to describe what was happening to him.
So, what do you do?
You go back to the four ways to protect your preschooler from abuse. Number 3 is the relevant lesson here:
3) Looking and touching
The bathtub is a good time to teach this lesson. Tell children that no one is to touch their private body parts and they are to never touch anyone else’s. Tell them that no one is to take pictures of them when they have no clothes on. Don’t use a tone of fear in the discussion – If you approach this the same way as you approach the rules of crossing the street or sharing toys, your child will not be scared or threatened.
As your children get older, you can tell them that even if what is happening feels good, they need to tell mom or dad right away.
I just had this discussion with my second grader this afternoon. I asked him what he would do if someone—an adult or another classmate—touched him or wanted my son to touch them. He said he would say “NO!” and go and tell mom.
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