You kept her safe
Are the youth in your part of the world online a lot more than usual?
It’s happening everywhere, even in communities in Thailand. The dark side is that online exposure to pornography is at an all-time, measurable high due to quarantine. We don't mean to scare you, but we do want your children to be safe. One critical topic that likely won't be included in your child’s school curriculum could prevent your child from harm.
Just this month, it protected a little girl from abuse. We call it Safe Touch.
Our Early Childhood Development Center is key to providing a safe learning space for vulnerable children, so in addition to teaching English words, colors and animal names, our teachers teach students how to keep themselves safe. We teach children that their bodies are their own and about personal privacy. Children learn about private spaces too, which includes the bathroom.
Because of this training, a little girl knew how to protect herself.
Two neighbor boys were regularly unsupervised on devices and had seen explicit content that they wanted to explore in real life. When they followed a little girl from our ECDC into her bathroom at home, even at age 4, she knew exactly what to do. As she shouted for the boys to leave her alone and called for help, her mother came quickly to her aid.
As simple as that is, children with healthy attachment are not naturally suspicious of others. When a trusted adult teaches a child about actions that should not be trusted, predatory grooming of that child becomes much less of a risk.
As GCA continues to serve this family, we will see this girl grow in confidence rather than wither beneath the effects of assault and abuse. She’ll know who she is. She’ll understand how to ask for help. And she’ll know how to stand up for herself.
This is how abuse is prevented. As Frederick Douglass once said, it is easier to raise strong children than to repair broken men.
GCA is committed to both prevention and crisis response. But we sure do delight in raising strong children who never know the pain of being broken.
You did that with us this month. While we recognize it is a simple measure to teach Safe Touch to children, you allowed it to save her from an experience that could have scarred her for life.
Thank you for standing with us and working with us as we raise and support strong children.