Talking to Your Tween about Body Safety
In 2023, tweens ages 9-12 years old have seen nonconsensual images. (Thorn Annual Report on Youth 2023). Parents may be hesitant in talking with your teen about inappropriate images and some tweens may not even have their own phone yet. Tweens that have phones share images with their peers on school buses, at hang outs within homes, and other private spaces where adult supervision is lacking. Some parents may lack sexual literacy in explaining to their child the basics of how their body is changing and that boundaries are part of this conversation. Preteens are in a pivotal developmental milestone in becoming more interested in hanging out with their peers more, understanding their own bodily autonomy, and learning how to understand the word consent. Preteens are having more bodily autonomy and I wrote about how parents can begin understanding this part of their child’s body. This blog is about how to continue the conversation with their tweens about body safety and how parents can take a preventative approach to mitigating the risk for your child in becoming a statistic of childhood sexual abuse.
Sexual Literacy
Educating your child requires some prior understanding for ourselves. When I teach my tween about fractions and measurements, I remember the way I was taught to measure things in the kitchen. Maybe you had a great math teacher to help you solidify your learning process about baking and math. The same goes for sexual health and having a more positive attitude about something new or challenging. The important aspect of being a parent with some type of sexual literacy is that you can then teach this to your child. In Melissa Pintor Caragey parenting book called Sex Positive: Talks to Have with Kids, it’s easier to talk about sexual development in a shame free, honest and necessary way.
By now, you may have started early on with books and music when they were younger. These conversations may be easier to have because this is territory that has been covered before with your children in various ways. You may use the anatomically correct names for their private parts and so now that they are tweens, they may feel more comfortable in talking to you about issues that come up. The time and space parents set up with their children will dictate how their tweens will show up with other conflicts they need help in problem solving.
If you haven’t had more nuanced conversations with your child, there is still time to show up as your most authentic parent self. You may be embarrassed to talk about things because you were raised to never talk about sex or that it was perhaps a sin. Your feelings of guilt may prevent you from getting to know more about the negative feelings your child may have about themselves and you. The most important aspect now is that you are feeling the need to make things less shameful for your child. You may feel your own feelings like an ocean wave crash down on you and that interrupts the connection you long to have with your fast developing tween.
Tweens are well aware of their emotions and can get stuck in them. Tweens are very perceptive of picking up on their parents' own feelings. That’s how important it is that we as parents get comfortable with our own knowledge and understanding of sexual literacy. We as parents must be aware of the importance of allowing them to openly express their feelings and that the adults in the room will help them navigate these unchartered territories of emotional expressions. In the movie, Inside Out, it comes up for the way the main character, Riley Anderson has a variety of emotions. The movie depicts them in great detail of individual characters like anger, disgust, sadness, & joy. Then, when Riley has an explosion of her anger upon waking up late for school, her mother also has similar sets of emotions that are depicted. This normalizes that we all have emotions and they must be recognized to really understand ourselves and others in our lives.
Parents may be scared
It’s safe to say that other parents share similar fears, anxiety, and feelings of joy when it comes to raising tweens. Parents have to navigate so much more than 5 channels of television networks when we were likely raised. Parents have the entire internet at their fingertips and many children are eager to have a smartphone. There are so many decisions parents have to make and the risks of how they will impact their child’s development. There are apps but many of them are targeted to children and we have decided how the various features like the chat feature can be turned off so predators have less access to your child while playing a game.
It’s also important as parents to be more open when we talk to each other. If a parent decides to ask you as a parent a variety of questions on what your child will be doing at their tween’s party, take that as a relief that someone else is interested in the well being of their child and yours. Maybe you haven’t thought about multiplayer video games or how you’ve forgotten there are various levels of filters you can place on your devices. You may even realize way later that you can pick and choose which apps you want tweens to have access to, for example you can delete the you-tube app. You can also feel more relief when you drop off your child that they are hanging out in open areas where supervision is within a clear line of vision. The parent may have even asked you to simply refrain from bringing their ipads because you’d prefer that your kids have more face to face time.
When parents start talking about their own struggles in raising their own children, it becomes a normalized experience. It takes out the heaviness of doing it all on your own. Parents can begin forming relationships and getting to know the actual parent. It has become commonplace to hardly know people and their children. It’s often when there is an incident at a school, playground or home when people really start getting to know others. When there is a birthday party, you don’t have to be shy in asking your questions because the other parent may find it helpful for them too. Yes, there will be Judge Judys making rash statements that get back to you because their kids talk to your kids. You may be labeled as a “helicopter parent” and at first you may take it personally.
However, you take a breath and come back to it when you are calm. You look at it objectively and laugh a little because you know the disparaging comment says more about where the other parent is at in their parenting journey. Rather than pointing the finger back at them, just know that it takes time for other parents to process something drastically different from them. This important information for you and your child as you can influence your child on whether that relationship will be further fostered. You may help your child look for signs of safe people. A safe person is someone that is respectful to you and your boundaries, showing kindness even though they may be different from others.
School and devices
As parents we can consider the issue of what kinds of devices our children will be using at their school. Technology is a useful tool and can bring so much learning for children. We as parents can begin asking the schools what their policy is on filtering laptops or other computers at schools. We as parents have a right to know the schools policy of other children bringing their smartphones. Children are sharing their smartphones with other children on buses, at PTO meetings, and the barrage of screen time for kids is relentless. Starting a conversation on digital safety is important in schools because we may not be aware of the bullying that happens because someone is sending deep fakes or how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being created by students based on photos that are easily obtained from the school’s social media posts. Again, here we can begin the conversation on consent and why it’s important to look at how important images are to schools.
Parental Stress
Parents are dealing with a lot of anxiety in trying to keep their child safe. Many parents are looking for support in managing their own feelings and their child’s own feelings. It can be overwhelming because one can feel isolated. I specialize in working with mothers and parents who are survivors of childhood sexual abuse. I have a select few slots left in my schedule Monday through Friday. I am a bilingual (English/Spanish) Latina therapist that specializes in working with generational trauma. Schedule a free 15 min consultation here, email here, or call at 803-573-0279.
References
Consent Parenting by Rosalia Rivera
Sex Positive Talks to Have with Kids: A guide to raising sexually healthy, informed, empowered young peopleby Melisa Pintor Carnagey LBSW
