Healthy touch is an integral part of human life. Through touch, we express our love, affection, and concern for others. Although touch is necessary in maintaining healthy relationships and often has great therapeutic value, it can also be confusing and send mixed messages. For example, parents may tell a child to kiss someone good night when they do not want to, or a child is spanked as punishment for hitting a sibling. Children need support to help them become in tune with their feelings around touch. For example, the messages that only children themselves get to decide how a touch makes them feel and that all touch can be talked about need to be emphasized. Children who know they have a right to question how they have been touched gain valuable child abuse prevention skills.

Big Messages:

• There are no secrets about touch and we should never keep a secret about touch regardless of who asks us to (What to say to kids: “there are no secrets about touch!”)
• All touch can be talked about along the whole continuum of physical touch (What to say to kids: “All touch can be talked about.”)
• A child’s ‘uh-oh’ feeling is their body telling them to talk to an adult (What to say to kids: “Pay attention to your ‘uh-oh’ feeling because it can protect you.”)
• Every individual gets to decide how a touch makes them feel and they get to decide how to be touched

Learning Goals:

Understand that there are no secrets around touch and all touch can be talked about

• Discuss how there should be no secrets around touch and how all touch can be talked about
• Explore examples of different kinds of touch and how they might make one feel
• Identify and practice language for talking about how touch can make one feel

Activities

Touch Bags
All Kinds of Touch
My Body Belongs to Me
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What The Evidence Says

(click here for full version of literature review)

Because touch is inextricable from most human interaction, children can be manipulated through a gradual process involving touch that eventually leads to abuse (McAlinden, 2006; Craven, et al., 2006). Often, child sexual abuse is perpetrated by an individual who is familiar to the victim and the process utilized by perpetrators is complex and multi-layered (Paine & Hansen, 2002). This is formally known as the grooming process. The ultimate goal of the grooming process is to obtain access to the targeted child for committing abuse. One important component of this is to have the child maintain secrecy about the abuse (Colton, et al., 2010; Hershkowitz, et al., 2007; Kogan, 2004; Eliot, et al., 1995). It is important children are protected from abuse through emphasizing important messages such as there being no secrets about touch and to get help when feeling uncomfortable or unsure about any kinds of touch.