Predators are everywhere; in the ocean, in the air and on our streets. Sexual Predators are often in our homes or in places our children frequent.

Protect your children by teaching them about predators. When talking about predators of the ocean or air let your children know that some humans are also predators, sexual predators, and that they prey on children.

The aim of protective behaviours is not to scare children but to give them life skills in personal safety. It is not a child’s job to protect them selves. Sexual abuse is always the responsibility of the perpetrator: a child sexual predator.

It is a child’s right to live a life free of harm. With rights comes responsibility. Children, by design, are irresponsible. Responsibility is a concept that is learnt. If parents are unable to teach children about the responsible actions of personal safety then children may become part of the food chain, the hunted, of sexual predators.

When next a teachable moment presents, seize it by providing information about the predator of the moment (eagle, shark, crocodile, etc) and throw in a sentence or two about human predators. It could be as simple as saying, “some adults prey on children. They don’t eat kids, but they do adult type things to the kids and try to keep it secret. If ever anyone tries to touch your private parts I’d really like you to tell me.”

Predators are scary. Teaching protective behaviours to keep kids safe is not.

The time of house protection for my adult children is upon us. Today we are off to Ingham to housesit for my son and daughter-in-law while they have a well-deserved break at Airlie Beach. We will not be back until Christmas Eve.

Child protection is a job that never ends. My son is 22 and I know I am going to do the whole mother thing as he and his wife drive away: drive safely, risk manage around situations, don’t walk alone, ring me if anything goes wrong.

While parental concern drives kids to distraction, parental concern also provides reminders that we all need to stay vigilant in every situation. Just as fences, windows, doors, walls and roof protect our house, it is a parents job to act protectively toward their children.

Children growing up in incestuous situations often do not have a parent looking out for their holistic welfare. The lies and manipulation required to keep child sexual abuse, or incest, a secret damage our children’s minds and create a confused dynamic of trust.

Hypervigilant through fear of being hurt, the child who has been sexually assaulted often scans the environment for danger but misses the danger when it pops up right under their nose. These are the children who could well benefit from constant, daily reminders that often bad things happen when we least expect them and that they often happen in what we may consider to be safe spaces.

When was the last time that you provided your child with safety reminders? Most parents engage in protective behaviours without even realising that they are doing it. Given that child sexual abuse is so prevalent it is time to make a conscious decision to do our utmost to keep ALL kids safe.

Do a protective behaviour audit. What words, games or messages do you give to your children to let them know that they can tell you about anything, that they can listen to their early warning signs and that it is okay to be rude to people and say no when other people are breaking the rules of protection, decency and appropriateness.

See you again on Christmas Eve. Stay safe and remember that nothing is so awful that you can’t talk to someone about it.

Protecting children by protecting the environment is a task that Aaron and Lyn Davey of Wait-a-While Nature Refuge have achieved to perfection. My family and I have just had the ultimate, soul cleansing pleasure of spending a night in the magnificent pole home and tropical rain forest surrounds, lovingly nurtured and shared by Aaron and Lyn. Committed to ecology, conservation and now eco tourism by default through their sharing personalities, this wonderful young couple has created a natural and protective refuge for both animal and human being alike.

After 15 years of working with families and children in both Australia and the U.K, across all levels of Government and in the community and private sectors, Megan Bayliss was sick and tired of waiting for business to make protective behaviors their business.

Megan embarked on a family focused business path of resource development. The original idea was to create and make available a number of specific resources that were easy to obtain, affordable and met best practice guidelines for working with children. Throughout this journey, market research continually supported that workers and parents were unable to identify specific elements of any protective behaviour programs.

With this low-level community knowledge in mind, Megan began to develop a model that would make it easy for parents, and workers, to remember how to fit protective behaviours together. Hence, a family friendly model of protective play resulted in the BITSS model of Protective Behaviors. BITSS is an easy to remember acronym for the important protective behaviour building blocks that are common to all other programs: the BITSS to remember are – Body ownership, Intuition, Touch, Say no, Support network. Since development, the model has grown to include in home protective play tutorials for parents/grandparents, easy read tutorials to support protective play, a series of children’s chapter books and workshops for people working with families and children.

How do you teach protective behaviors to your children?

What does your business do to support ending child abuse?

Hello. Come on in and have a virtual coffee with us.

Imaginif is a privately owned Protective Behavior company that aims not only to protect children from abuse but also to give a voice to those who have survived child abuse.

There are three of us posting blogs around the business of protective behaviors: Megan Bayliss, Paul Martin and Jade Pinto. We each have a different area of professional expertise in the area of preventing child abuse and we each have an active part to play in making child protection important business.

Talking about child abuse is scary. The topic remains hidden under the covers and many parents prefer not to raise it with their children because of a fear they will damage their children’s innocence.

We want YOU. We want parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, the business sector, and the survivors to help give a global voice to ending child abuse.

Child abuse is BIG business and big business needs big leaders willing to make child abuse prevention a BIG priority. YOU are that big leader.

Join us daily for a coffee and a chat. Share you stories, your ideas, your passion and most importantly, your POWER. Help us positively market the strength and vision that many survivors of child abuse have as their gift.

Blow the cover on child abuse. Talk, talk, talk and show the business community how beneficial it will be for them to support ending child abuse.

Imaginif means business. Protecting against child abuse is our business.