Body Safety Blog

The Moment This Mom Realized Her Child Was the Only One

Sarah was hosting what seemed like a perfect playdate. Six kids, ages 4-7, running around the backyard, squealing with laughter. She was chatting with the other moms when she heard her 5-year-old's voice cut through the chaos:

"Hey, you need to ask before you hug someone!"

She looked over to see her daughter standing between two kids—one who had just grabbed the other in what looked like an uncomfortable bear hug from behind.

The grabbed child looked relieved. The hugger looked confused. And all the other parents went silent.

That's when it hit her like a punch to the gut: Her child was the only one there who had been taught about consent and body boundaries.

In that moment, she realized something heartbreaking. Despite all her efforts to educate her own child, she was essentially sending her into a world where she was the only one who understood these critical safety concepts. She was going to be surrounded by children wh...

Here are the average times kids spend at school: 

Kindergarten: Around 15 to 30 hours per week

• Half-day programs: 3–4 hours per day (15–20 hours per week)
• Full-day programs: 6 hours per day (30 hours per week)

Elementary School (Grades 1–5 or 6): Around 30 to 35 hours per week

• Most schools have a 6- to 7-hour school day, five days a week.

That's a lot of time to trust our kids to a school (and system) that we hardly know...

We drop off our kids hoping that they will have a good day, make friends, not be bullied, eat their lunch, have a compassionate teacher, don't get hurt on the playground, get included in team sports, that the teacher makes learning fun, that they don't fall behind academically, or that their school won't ever have to experience a school shooting (a legitimate concern in the U.S.).

And we receive student or school handbooks that cover everything from food allergy policies, anti-bullying policies, fire drills, classroom conduct, lunch schedules, classr...

Research suggests that false allegations of child sexual abuse are relatively uncommon outside of specific contexts, such as custody disputes. Studies indicate that false reports of sexual abuse occur at low rates, often estimated at less than 5% of cases.

For example, Yates’ (1991) review found that false accusations in non-custody-related cases are rare, especially when compared to accusations in custody disputes, where motivations like securing child custody may come into play​ (and sadly, this has been weaponized by lawyers and the judicial system to claim parental alienation in cases where children really ARE being abused and the safe parent is villanized for 'coaching' a child to disclose- but that's another post for another day).

Furthermore, in educational settings, Charol Shakeshaft’s research on educator misconduct indicated that none of the accusations in their sample of educator sexual misconduct cases were found to be fabricated.

In these cases, although sometimes ther...