I thought I’d done a really good job of teaching My Baby Girl about strangers, about privates, about people looking, asking to look, touching or asking to touch her.  I taught her to scream and fight and bite and run to Mama or Daddy.

I didn’t teach her that if she couldn’t get out of the situation, it wasn’t her fault.  That if she was paralyzed by fear or shock that it was normal and not her fault.

I didn’t tell her that some of the inappropriate touching that shouldn’t be allowed could just be rubbing of her head or her thigh.  It could be a caress to her face.  I didn’t teach her to just give high 5’s instead of hugs.  To NOT sit on people’s laps.  To say no when someone asked for a hug.

I didn’t teach her that the most important thing for her to remember was that she should always tell her Mama.  To never keep a secret.  To not listen if someone tells her that they might hurt her or her parents or that we won’t believe her or that she did something wrong.

Here are tips for you to follow before anything could ever happen to your child…

We can never guarantee that what we teach our kids will enable them to get out of a bad situation, but we can do our best to give them skills & prepare them for the unexpected.

And there are some great age-appropriate books out there to help you review these topics with your child in a way that won’t scare them.  Here are a few resources…

And lastly, I found this great site with some parenting action items to help keep kids safe from a future of abuse and rape.

What I’ve learned throughout this process is that I know nothing.  And that’s ok, as long as I know that I know nothing and do everything I can to educate myself and my husband and my Baby Girl!