Hi sex witch, hopefully this ask isn't too much or anything š
How can you educate young children on what is and isnt safe for other people to do to them, with regards to sex/touch/etc, without telling them too much and causing them more harm? I've seen some examples of how people talk to their kids that seem pretty reasonable, but it's something I struggle with knowing where the boundary is. My mum had a lot of her own trauma that fed into how she educated me on that topic, (her lessons were usually along the lines of "if a man tries to come and take you away from me or touch you in ways you don't like, xyz is how you should defend yourself so you can come back to me" or "stay right next to me and hold on to my coat so I know youre there", repeated to me basically every time we left the house from when I was old enough to walk), so between that and being autistic, I ended up convinced that being kidnapped wasn't an if, it was a when, so i constantly lived in absolute terror of going outside, and then when I didn't end up being kidnapped/harmed at any point in my young childhood, that caused a whole bunch of other issues for me that left me very vulnerable as a teenager. I'm not planning on having kids, but my partners are/might be, so I want to be prepared for if they ever ask me about this stuff.
Sorry if this got too trauma-dumpy, I just wanted to give you adequate context as to where I'm coming from with this question, bc I was kind of over-informed, and a lot of resources are coming from the perspective of kids usually being under-informed so I havent really found great answers online. -šøš§
I don't generally work with kids younger than 10, but the advice for that age group is generally as follows:
inform kids of the correct terms for their body parts including the genitals and anus and let them know that:
those parts of their body shouldn't be touched by others without their permissions
there may be some situations where caregivers and healthcare providers might need to see or touch there in order to help
if anyone, adult or another child, family or friend or stranger, is pressuring them to touch their body or to touch the child's body in a way that makes them feel hurt, scared, or unsafe, then they should go to a safe adult for help. identifying a list of safe adults is something I do with all the kids I work with, regardless of their age.
my personal belief is also that talking to kids about masturbation and letting them know that it's okay to touch themselves to feel nice is totally okay as long as they understand when and where it's appropriate to do so and how to keep clean
modelling consent and autonomy as much as possible also helps teach kids ownership of their body and that they have a right to expect to be listened to when they say "no" and that something is wrong when their consent isn't respected
telling kids they're going to be kidnapped is generally not part of it!