Teaching Body Safety Early

We talk with registered psychologist Victoria Baronson about how to teach body safety and bodily autonomy from the early years, even when the words feel awkward. We leave with clear ways to build consent, emotional literacy, and safer disclosure so kids know their body is theirs and they can speak up.

In this episode, we cover:

 • A confronting reminder that perpetrators can look “friendly” and familiar
 • Why anatomically correct terms like vulva reduce shame and support disclosure
 • How correct language can deter grooming and flag unusual new words
 • Starting early through storybooks and everyday care routines
 • Building autonomy with simple choices during drying, dressing, and greetings
 • How forced hugs can train kids to prioritise others over their own body signals
 • Using emotional literacy to help kids name feelings and ask for help
 • Conversation prompts that create openness without interrogation
 • Responding to concerns with calm listening and open questions
 • The “I notice, I wonder” framework for behaviour changes
 • Where to find Safe Kids Project resources, checklists, and courses

If you found this episode helpful, please feel free to share it with another parent who may benefit from hearing this conversation today.

Welcome to the Kebudel Parent Podcast—your no-nonsense, fun-filled guide to parenting, straight from the experts who really get kids (and parents too!). 

Brought to you by experienced early childhood educators, we’re here to dish out practical advice, laugh at the messiness of parenting, and share our insider knowledge to help you thrive. From decoding tantrums to sparking your child’s love of learning, we cover it all with a healthy dose of humor and zero judgment.

Why listen? Because parenting doesn’t come with a manual, but it can come with expert-backed insights, a little sass, and a whole lot of support. Let’s navigate this wild ride together—one episode at a time. 

Transcript

Welcome And Why Body Safety

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Kiodo everyone and welcome back to the Caboodle Podcast. I'm your host, Alex B. Hazen, and today we are talking about something that can feel really uncomfortable for many parents to just think about, but it is incredibly important that we do. And that is how we can help our children understand body safety and their own bodily autonomy from a young age. I remember the moment that this topic really landed for me. I was very early pregnant with my twins, and I was attending a professional development workshop as an ECE leader. Now during this session, we were split into two groups, and in each group we were given a word to describe. One group was asked to describe an ECE teacher, and in the other group, they were asked to describe a child's sex offender. What was really confronting was that when we shared our answers, many of the words used in both groups were the same. Words like friendly, fun, caring, helpful, approachable. It was a really powerful moment because it highlighted something many of us don't think about. And that is that we're not always able to identify who might be a perpetrator just by looking at them or the role that they play in our child's life. That experience stayed with me and it shifted the way I thought about safety. And it highlighted that while we may not be able to control every situation our child might be in or who they interact with, we can equip them with the knowledge about their bodies, their boundaries, and their right to speak up if something doesn't feel right. So today I'm really honored to be joined by somebody who works deeply in this space, our guest, Victoria Baronson. And she is a registered psychologist working in the field of child trauma, specializing in sexual abuse. She holds a master's degree in educational psychology and brings years of therapeutic practice, research, and professional development to her work. So let's dive in. Victoria, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I am so grateful that you are going to be able to share your knowledge and experience with us.

A Confronting ECE Workshop Lesson

SPEAKER_01 2:10

This is a really important topic for parents, and I know the conversation is going to help a lot of families to feel confident about how they approach bodily safety with their children. So to start off, would you like to share a little bit about yourself and what drew you to working in this space?

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Yeah. Hello, and thank you for having me and for the lovely introduction. I, as you've mentioned, am a psychologist and have worked in this space coming up nine years now. And I originally went into the work supporting young people who had engaged in harmful sexual behavior towards other children. And that work shifted into supporting those that had also experienced some form of sexual harm. And it's a space that I feel so deeply privileged to work in. I feel really honored to support children, young people in their families in that healing journey and that healing process. And I'll share a story about how my work shifted from what felt like being an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff into more prevention work. So I had supported a young person for a really long time. They had experienced sexual abuse themselves, and then they also went on to sexually harm one of their siblings. And as I said, this work didn't um confront me or wasn't outside of what I would normally do. But there was a session where he shared with me what his intentions were with a younger girl that he'd met online, and I just felt my whole body freeze, my stomach's sort of flit. I'm not really a speechless person, but I was really speechless in this moment, and that was because I was pregnant with my first baby, and I had shifted from just being a psychologist to also being a mother. And from that moment, I knew that my practice needed to look different. So before my daughter was born, I went on a really big journey to figure out how I could keep her safe by her knowing her body, knowing her boundaries, knowing what felt right, what didn't feel right, because there's this awareness that I knew I'm not going to be with her forever and I can't protect her all of the time. And so, how can I make her early years as education-rich as possible so she really understands her body is her choice, and she gets to make decisions that feel right for it. And so, yeah, I set out on this um learning journey, lots of research, lots of conversations, and then lots of lived experience of implementing body

From Trauma Therapy To Prevention

SPEAKER_00 4:50

safety strategies with her. And one afternoon I was talking to my husband about the importance of using the word vulva, and he was like, Wow, this is really important stuff. Like, we need to be sharing this. Like you need to share this with people. And so I developed the Safe Kids Project, which is an online platform where I share resources, information, I take psychological concepts and I try and break them down so that it's digestible and it's easy for parents to learn that body safety is actually just a normal and natural part of the years.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Amazing. So your kind of journey into motherhood really kind of shifted your your work into educate parents and giving them skills so that they can help their kids. I think that is incredible. And it is interesting when you talk about, you know, using the correct terminology, that can be really confronting just that using the proper terms for our body parts.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Yeah, a hundred percent. And I find with the parents that I support, this is something that comes up often and it is a lot of discomfort because often those are words that we were not taught to use up. And I know that for myself. It was my late 20s when I learned that evolver was evolver. And so when we haven't been exposed to this, when we're younger, it feels really uncomfortable. However, teaching our children anatomically correct labels for their bodies, I would say is one of the most powerful tools we can use to prevent sexual harm and sexual abuse, particularly in the grooming space. There's a few reasons for this. Firstly, is when we talk about our bodies, we talk about an elbow, we talk about a shoulder or a nose, but then we use nicknames for private parts. What we automatically do to our children is we say, that's not a not a part of our body we talk about. That's not a natural and normal part of our body. So when we use the correct terms, we reduce any stigma and shame about them. Secondly, there have been interviews done with child sexual offenders. And in those interviews that have been done, they shared that when children knew the correct terminology for their body, this was a massive deterrent for them to harm the child because it meant that those conversations about their body were happening at home and they were open and they were a conversation that actually this is happening, therefore it's really unsafe for me to do this with this child, they're more likely to share the information. And then finally, and this is something that I see in my private practice, is when children have the correct terms for their body, they can share it. Something has happened to them. If they don't have the correct terminology, often the abuse can get missed, or if we end up going into the court system, often it doesn't have as much evidence or support behind it. So it is really powerful from a deterrent perspective, but also that our children have the language to speak about their body if they need to. So interesting.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

I also remember hearing this, and I'd love to get your take on this as well, is that if you were using a certain terminology within your own home, and you know, your child comes to you one day and uses different terminology for different body parts, that can be a

Why Correct Body Names Matter

SPEAKER_01 8:10

really good sign to go, hmm, where did you hear that term from? You start that kind of dialogue with your child.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yeah, perfect. And I love the question that you asked. Where did you hear that from? Or who did that who shared that with you? When we come with that to our children with curiosity in this space, it can be really powerful. And you're right, if our child has language that we are using or sharing at home, there's a really good chance that conversations about their body in that way are happening somewhere. And so curiosity and then following through if required is really important too.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

So for parents with babies and toddlers, when and how should we start teaching children about body safety and boundaries?

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Yeah, great question. I say as early as you possibly can. Uh, and the way that I would recommend doing this is as soon as children are young, they can comprehend what you're sharing. Start making it a really normal part of their life. We teach children how to cross the road. We're saying look both ways. Can you hear for cars? What can you see? Hold my hand. We are keeping them safe because we're teaching them from as early as we possibly can, maybe once they're out of the pram, how they can cross the road, right? And so it's the same when it comes to their body. When they are at it at an age where they understand that they're what their body is, what their private parts are, we can start having conversations and we can start role modeling and engaging in activities that support them to understand. One of my really powerful tips, I would say, for babies' toddlers is through story. So I have a recommendation list which I can share maybe in the show notes with books that we can read to our children about body autonomy, about consent, all things body really, because story is a really powerful way for children to get big concepts and allow them to land in a way that's as relevant, as age-appropriate for them. And I also find sharing through books supports us as parents to gently ease into the conversation. If you were taught how to cross the road, right, but you were never taught how to keep your body safe, then you need to be really gentle with yourself as you go on this parenting journey because it's you, it's different. You probably haven't done it before. It's you don't have this roadmap to follow that says, do this, do this. So stories not only introduce it to you, but they also can introduce it to your child. Another thing I would really recommend is sh talking to your child about their body. So from a really young age with my children, I've said, I'm gonna change your nappy right now. There's no choice in whether the nappy gets changed, right? Because that needs to be done. But I'm just informing them that this is happening to their body. Or as they've got older, they might pop out of the shower and they'll say, Would you like Mama to dry your body or would you like to dry your body? Really simple terms where they are in a situation with an adult who is checking in with their body, who is asking questions, who's not just assuming that I'm just gonna dry their body and I'm gonna do this. Tape over. Like, where can we be giving them body autonomy? Also, from a young age, I've always let my children choose how they greet other people. So they get a choice. Do you want to give a hug? Would you like to give a high five, or is a wave enough today? And that's just a reminder for them or an awareness or acknowledgement for them that actually it's your body. You get to choose how you physically interact with another person.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Yeah. That's really interesting about I think about how you greet like someone in your family. I see this just out and about interactions that you observe, how often children are forced into um greeting somebody in a way that even as an adult, I wouldn't greet my auntie sometimes the way we expect children to greet their auntie. Give your auntie a kiss, give your grandma a kiss. And it's like, well, what if they don't want to? Like as an adult, I wouldn't I just wouldn't do it. But we don't often consider that maybe we should be giving that choice to children as well.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Yeah, a hundred percent. And from a really young age, I think this is powerful because it's a moment in time where a child gets to choose what what actually feels right in my body. Can I listen to what sensations are happening here? And then can I engage in that? And one of the things for me is I want my children to have as much practice when they're young as they possibly can at listening to their body and then communicating how they would like to greet or engage with another person. Because at some point they're gonna be a teenager or an early adult. And I want them to make decisions that they want to make, right? They are gonna be in relationships, they are going to explore that part of their life. And while they're young, I want them to know that sensation of what feels good and what feels right, so that when they are old, those are the interactions

Everyday Consent With Babies

SPEAKER_00 12:55

that they engage in and that they fully feel that in their body. Because I think what we can risk when they are young and we force them to hug and kiss is this belief that I must do these things to keep other people happy. My body is a way of connecting or keeping other people happy. And so I'm working really hard to do this, and and it is hard because I think a lot of body safety education is wonderful because it happens in the home and it's education. But when it comes to say how they greet another person, we're also sharing our boundaries with say extended family or with friends, and often there can be a lot of pushback in this space.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Yeah, it's it's interesting, eh? Because I often talk with families about how we have to safely guide our children many, many times in their childhood, like little micro moments, how we guide them in those moments all add up to when they're able to be fully independent. They will have this like default setting of understanding who they are and how to be in a situation. And so how you were just describing, you know, offering that support and guidance to our kids just really resonated with me. And I thought it's interesting how often you see when children don't greet others with a hug and a kiss, they're seen as not being polite. Don't be rude, don't be to your grandma or whoever it is. Um, and just thinking, you know, it's it's about teaching our children about their bodily autonomy, about their boundaries. So really that's such an important point to hit, isn't it? How often we push our children into situations that they're not actually listening to themselves? Does this feel right for me? Because as you say, oh, we're all gonna end up with teenagers. And as somebody who has a teenage twen two teenagers, that is fast approaching to me, which is kind of frightening. So moving on, how do can parents build that relationship where their child feels safe in telling them that something makes them feel uncomfortable or potentially doesn't feel right?

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Yeah. I'm really big on emotional literacy. It's something that I teach in my online courses that we need our children to have an awareness of an emotion that they feel within themselves and then the skills and tools to communicate that with us. And so just as much as teaching them consent or uh body autonomy, we also need to be getting them to check in with their emotions. And so a big thing I do with my children is just simply checking in. It might be, how are you feeling in your body today? What do you notice? Well, I can see you're really frustrated. I like to give my children the words that they might be experiencing so they can start to associate that emotion with a word as well. And then it's all about conversations. I'm really open with my children. I ask questions frequently. I also take their lead here. You know, after Kindi, it's like not a time to probe for a million questions. But we recently went on a family camping trip and there was a lot of extended family on our camping trip that sort of came and went over a week. And by no means do I think my family are unsafe or I would ever have anyone unsafe around my children. But after that camping event, I was brushing my daughter's hair and I asked her some questions like, oh, what was your favorite part of the trip? Was there anything new that you'd never done before? Is there anything you want Mama to know about the trip that I don't already know? And I create this space where conversations flow naturally and she's learning that actually mum wants to know. Like mum's curious about this. And no matter what her response is, when I have capacity, I always try and hold space for for her experience and whatever that might be. And so the more we question, the more we create these open spaces with our children, the more likely we are to have them come to us and connect in with us. And as I said before, when we do have capacity, really holding space for our children's emotions can be a really powerful way for them to learn. I've gone to mum before about this, or I've gone to dad before about this, and they've been able to support me through that. I know that I could go to them in the future if I needed to as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

The emotion, the emotional literacy is a big one, especially in our generation. We really know the importance of just understanding how to describe what we're feeling and moving through our big emotions constructively. Um, and it is a skill that we're learning to teach our kids, and that is so hard, and we're not always going to get it right every time. But uh kind of endeavoring to create that space with open questions is so powerful. Sometimes I I say to myself when I'm getting curious with my children about their days or just conversations and we're unpacking something, is an acronym. Wait, why am I talking? Why am I talking right now? Because actually, is this for me to make myself feel more comfortable in this situation, or am I opening up the space for them to unpack what's happening

Emotional Literacy Builds Safe Disclosure

SPEAKER_01 18:05

with curiosity and just letting them have the room for the moment? So it's so important when we're looking at like creating that space, understanding how to describe feelings, getting curious with open questions. And I love the questions that you have shared with your kids. You know, is there anything that you want to share with me that I don't already know? You know, I think that's just so nice. There's no judgment there, there's just curiosity. So, Victoria, if a young child says something or behaves in a way that concerns a parent, what is the best way for them to respond in that moment?

SPEAKER_00 18:41

The best thing that you can possibly do is listen to your child if there is any form of disclosure or it's coming through a conversation, is to listen and be really mindful of the words and the questions that you're using. We've spoken quite a bit already about curiosity. But in this situation, if you hear anything, come at it with curiosity through questions, and it might be something like, Can you tell me more about that? And then what happened and who was there when that happened? They're really open, they're not directing the conversation in any way, but it's an opportunity for you to gather more information. If it's more through behavior, you can also have a conversation with your child. Hey, I've noticed that this is going on. I wonder where that came from, or I wonder where you learned that. Or I wonder if you can tell me a little bit more about that. I have a framework I love to use when we're having any kind of conversation, whether it's with our children or colleagues or family members, is I notice and I wonder. Okay, I'm noticing you are pulling your pants down in public places at the moment. I wonder where you learnt to do that, right? It's a really curious way. Acknowledge the behavior and then figure out where it's coming from. So a framework like that could be really powerful. And then based on what you hear from that information, will determine the next steps that you need to take. And so being really calm where possible, noticing how you might be feeling within your own body and if there's some regulation that's needed, like taking that, maybe some deep breaths or grounding yourself into the present moment, and then reaching out to professionals or organizations within your local community or nationwide that can support you to move through that. If it's anything happening within an education setting, you need to contact the education settings straight away, have a lot of conversations there as well as um other social organizations within your community.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

As we finish up today, I'd love to give you the opportunity to share any resources that might be helpful for parents listening. Are there books, tools, places parents can go to learn more about body safety? Or is there anything that you'd love to share that you haven't shared and you just would really love to share it with the caboodle community?

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Yeah, sure. I have a Instagram page which is the Safe Kids Project, and I share heaps free information on there. And also in my link section of my bio, I have free resources as well for parents. So I have a list of book recommendations on body safety in there. I also have some free body autonomy affirmation cards that you can print out, read through with your child to again introduce the topic in a really gentle, kind, natural way. If you have older children, I also have a free checklist on there for playdates and sleepovers so that you know your child has the right information. And then also you can have conversations with who they're having the playdates and sleepovers with. And on top of that, I run a course called Foundations of Body Safety, which is a six week program and it's support to me, education from me, so that you can weave body safety into the early years for your children. All the information about that is Also on my Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Oh, and I've heard rave reviews on your program. So highly recommend it to parents if you just really want to get confident and just know what to do in situations. Because you know we're all learning. We are all learning and it takes time. Awesome. Thank you so much, Victoria, for joining me today because your work is incredibly important and it's empowering for parents to have those skills. I know that this conversation is going to give parents who are listening a lot to think about. And some of these topics may be confronting and it might cause a little bit of discomfort within you. But please know that Victoria's website has tons of incredible resources so you can delve into further developing your understandings or just to make yourself feel more confident about how to approach these conversations with your children.

Responding Calmly To Concerning Signs

SPEAKER_01 22:55

So thank you for listening, everybody. Thank you for tuning into the Kibirtle podcast. If you found this episode helpful, please feel free to share it with another parent who may benefit from hearing this conversation today. Awesome. I'll see you all in the next episode.