As children’s first and most enduring educators, parents are best placed to begin conversations with their children in an age and developmentally appropriate way.
Protecting God’s Children: A Catholic Parent’s Guide to Keeping Their Kids Safe is a protective behaviours resource aimed at supporting Catholic parents of children aged 5-12 years old.
The resource helps parents teach children a range of important personal safety skills, supports the development of emotional intelligence skills and promotes a child’s understanding of the right to feel safe through engaging activities and storybooks.
Using the concept of “basket fillers”, the resource begins by exploring the theme, “God gave all children the right to feel safe at all times” and sequentially builds on:
children’s understanding of safety
awareness of their feelings and early warning signs
body awareness
helping seeking strategies
empowering children to say no in unsafe situations
reinforcing the concept of personal space, and
importantly the theme of “Nothing is so awful that we can’t talk with someone about it”.
Whilst we maintain that adults are ultimately responsible for maintaining safe environments for children, it is just as important to empower children to recognise when they are feeling unsafe and to tell a trusted adult (or adults) so that action is taken to help them be safe and feel safe.
Updated: 9/18/2020 4:13:31 PM
This is the document Fr Tony Doran signed during Mass on Child Protection Sunday, 13 September 2020