We view protecting our children different....

[Leati]

So if you have chatted with me by now you realize that I am from the United States. I am frequently surprised by some of the different perspective of people here vs. there.

What originally caught my attention and brought me to the website was a news article about parents being upset of a missing child ad before a movie. Here in the United States our missing children our posted on milk cartons that are distributed at school. But in the UK people seemed to feel that there children were unnecessarily being frightened. In the United States parents are encouraged to role play "strangers with their kids." I pretend to be a stranger approaching my children with something that might attract a child like a puppy or candy. Then they react to the stranger. The theory is practice now and later your child will put those skillst to work. Like a fire or an earthquake drill.

The next difference that really shocked me was a parent stated that it was sad that children in the US had to be taught about good touches and bad. I have posted two websites related to your Britains child sexual abuse rates. The government sites shows that 12% girls had been sexually abused before 16 and 8% of boys...in the UK. And yet I have had serious arguements with mothers from the UK over educating your children about good touches and bad touches. Help me understand the how we can have such different opinions.

Pasted is a copy of the report and the website it was pulled from
"Of 2019 men and women (aged 15 years and over) interviewed as part of a MORI Survey of a nationally representative sample of Great Britain, 10% reported that they had been sexually abused before the age of 16 (12% of females; 8% of males). There was no increased risk associated with specific social class categories or area of residence. For all types of sexual abuse, the mean age of victims when first abused was significantly lower for females. Subjective reports of the effects of sexual abuse indicated that the majority (51%) felt harmed by the experience, while only 4% reported that it had improved the quality of their life. We estimate that there are over 4.5 million adults in Great Britain who were sexually abused as children, and that a potential 1,117,000 children will be sexually abused before they are 15 years of age. At least 143,000 of these will be abused within the family. The social and mental health implications are enormous, and the authors suggest that an effective intervention and prevention policy is urgently required."

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=4084825&dopt =Abstract

home.earthlink.net/~elnunes/stats.htm

Pitch in and make this one interesting. Maybe we can learn from each other.

But Leati, what is your response to the (admittedly unscientific! ) Oprah experiment which shows that even children who have been taught to be fearful and wary of strangers, instantly forget the lessons when confronted with the sweeties, puppies or whatever?

I'm not just quoting Oprah because I;ve got shares in her btw, I just suspect that what she showed was pretty representative of a RL situation.

(I don't necessarily think that the good touch - bad touch programme itself is a bad thing, by the way. I'd be perfectly happy to see it introduced in DS's school. Your argument to begin with did seem to be "sexual abuse rates in the UK are half what they are in the US. So why don't you do things our way?", though.)

I have no doubt that some children will forget. Just like some children will forget what to do when an earthquake or fire happens. I think the more you role-play and practice and remind your child the better your odds that they will remember. Just so you know, I have one of those children. The over friendly chatters who want to talk to everyone but I still practice and remind him.

Yes but in our young country the cycle of abuse started long before you or me. I am native american and my greats walked the trail of tears. They abused thier children who in turn abused thier children.

Whats more if you look at that the only stat I could find and is old. If you look at butterbeer statisic the rate for girls is 27% and for boys is 16%. That is higher than ours. Whats more is reporting often does not stop the initial abuse but does stop it from continuing.

This time I am seriously going to bed. I will pick up this tomorrow but discuss it with each other.

Leati - your intentions are true, but I have a real problem with the American way of sliding issues like gun control under the carpet, it is utterly shocking.

Surely in light of recent, and not so recent events, the threat to American children of being shot dead at school, is an issue which demands serious attention, immediately.

If I lived in a country where there was a real threat of my child, or any other being shot, I would make it my business to campaign and petion all I could to see those laws revoked.

If you read my post again, my statistic of girls 27% and boys 16% was for the US and not the UK, Leati -- and for a survey done using similar methodology to the UK study you cited, and done within five years of it. So they should be roughly comparable. So the suggestion would still be that US rates are twice those in the UK.

Haven't looked at the links but am horrified about the idea of 'good touches and bad touches'. Can see this is a terribly confusing message for children which could give them a lifelong fear of sex and a sense of shame in their own bodies. There is a BIG difference between teaching children about how to protect themsleves and inappropriate behaviour and suggesting that some sorts of 'touches' are inherently 'bad'.

As others have said the VAST majority of child abuse takes place in the home with someone the child knows. This is what needs to be targeted and promoting the idea of stranger danger (statistically relatively insignificant) is often counter productive and just makes children and parents afraid unnecessarily. This has partly led to parents not letting their kids play out or develop independence which has increased the problem of childhood obesity a much bigger and growing threat to children and adults than stranger danger.

In the interests of scrupulous fairness, though (and I am firmly on the side of gun control), swimming pools are more dangerous.

If you have a gun in your house (in the US) it is some astonishing number of times more likely to kill a child than to kill someone in self-defence. But if you have both a gun and a swimming pool your child is several times more likely to be killed by the swimming pool than the gun.

I don't think that just because Leati is Amnerican necessarily means she is a fully paid up member iof the pro gun lobby, does it?

BB - perhaps not in America.

Hey butterbeer! A fellow Freakonimist

Leati is also Native American. My dad's mom was, too. Her perspective on many things was different to most white Americans and even her white husband.

hurricane -- don't you think that you ought to actually look at the programme before condemning it?

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According to GTBT:

Good touches" are those touches that make us feel happy, safe and loved. Good touches can make us feel warm inside or can make us feel like a smile. Most of the touch we get is good touch. Good touches are so important!

"Bad touches" are those touches that hurt us; they feel like an ouch. Some examples are kicking, hitting and biting.

"Sexual abuse touch" is forced or tricked touch of private body parts. The key words are forced or tricked. A force is when someone makes you do something you don't want to do or don't understand. A trick is when someone lies to you, fools you, pretends or calls something a game that really isn't a game so they can touch your private body parts or have you touch theirs. Sexual abuse is confusing because it doesn't necessarily hurt; the touch can feel good.

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Personally I am quite happy to teach DS that kicking, hitting and biting are inherently bad. If he wants to take up kickboxing later I'm sure he'll figure it out for himself.

Anyway, I'm digressing.

The issue being discussed is 'child abuse'

sorry for my rantings.

The trouble is Tnog, if you revoke laws allowing people to have guns for self defense then the people who have them illegally have free reign and you are very vulnerable.

[Can we take gun control onto another thread, please?]

Butterbeer, still seems incredibly confusing to me. So sexual contact between an adult and a child is a 'bad touch' even though it can feel 'good'??? But sexual contact between consenting adults i.e. a child's parents is a 'good touch'.??? And how on earth is a young child supposed to negotiate 'tricked touches'??

Any messages about abuse and sexuality have to be kept simple, unambiguous and clear.

Children know that kicking, biting etc is wrong. This is a message which is constantly reinforced in schools and should be at home. What is the point of describing these kinds of violent behaviour as 'bad touches'. Can you imagine having to deal with little Jim coming to his teacher and telling him that little Peter has just given him a 'bad touch'.

Children need to feel positive about their bodies and their sexuality. This stuff sounds incredibly counter productive and possibly make children more likely to conceal any abuse.

Absolutely.

The title talked about Protecting children, however it is specifically about abuse, so gun control and the killing of children is not really apropriate to this thread at all.

Sorry Leati, for the hijack.

Again, daddy touches mummy in ways that feel her loved and warm inside. This is not a 'bad touch' is it?? This sort of euphemism is confusing and counter-productive.

Why not just teach kids about their bodies and about sex in a matter of fact way and tell them that sex is fine and fun for consenting adults.

I think it's criminal that some people try to teach kids about woolyl 'good touches' and 'bad touches' and role play this kind of stuff (YUK YUK YUK) but shy away from telling kids how babies are made or calling a vagina a vagina.

Sorry

And where does this leave children who touch themselves or children who touch other children which is a natural part of growing up.

oh a game of doctors and nurses is now defined as child on child abuse, doncha know

I am thoroughly at the good touch bad touch website. They have copywrited and trademarked the terms 'good touch/bad touch'. So if you use those terms to explain inappropriate behaviour to your children - you are infringing their copywrite. WTF?

good touch and bed touch is only for MC hippies and americans who watch hallmark.

i always said to my kids - no one touches your privates including me.

by the time they are old enough to explain to - they are old enough to be wiping their biots at bathtime anyway.

and there is also the "spidey sense" girls tend to get in certain situations.

that is so inarticulate but my daughter an i had a long discussion about feeling freaky for no apparent reason - say at someone elses house - and to just come home even if its unexplainable.

good touch bad touch is just wanky