How to Create A Child-Safety Plan With Diane Tarantini
Diane Tarantini
Diane joins me on the podcast for the second week in a row to talk about a few super important topics – Having a body safety plan and some important (mind blowing) facts about kiddos and pornography. Why is it on the rise?
I grabbed some information from Diane’s website, plus if you scroll down she walks us through how to set up some safety plans!
Hello, friend! It’s Diane Tarantini
Guess what I do for a living? I’m a child safety educator. Why? Because I’m a survivor of child sexual abuse. Due to my own abuse experience (which spanned a number of years), I decided early on—in the fourth grade, actually—to make child safety my life’s work. Because I want to be part of the solution.
The child safety work I do is three-fold.
- I believe adults should keep kids safe. So I equip them to do that very thing.
- Because I know adults can’t be everywhere all the time, I also equip kids to recognize, avoid, escape, and/or report abuse events–potential or actual.
- In addition, I’m an advocate for sexual abuse survivors. Supporting and encouraging other survivors is very important to me.
How do I do it? I accomplish my child safety work with words.
- I read words in order to be well-informed regarding the child safety industry.
- To equip caregivers and educators (and support survivors), I write words in blog posts, social media posts, and more.
- I also speak words at child safety events. In my home state of West Virginia, I’m a body safety educator in the public school system. I’m also available to speak to community or private entities such as a neighborhood, church, library, scouting groups, etc.. Since I’m an author, blogger, and newspaper, and magazine freelancer, I also offer writing workshops for kids and adults. If you want to discuss the possibility of my working with your organization, contact me here.
One in 10 kids will be sexually abused by the time they’re 18. It’s a heartbreaking statistic, isn’t it? However, that number is actually an improvement over what it used to be. Which means child safety efforts are working. Which means prevention is possible. To be part of the solution is my honor and joy.
PURCHASE THE BRAVE KNIGHT
How to Keep Kids Safe
Click HERE to get your free guide!
Resources
The Brave Knight children’s book: For information, click here.
Diane’s website: Dianetarantini.com
Free Child Safety Resource: “How to Keep Kids Safe: 20 Tips from a Body Safety Expert” (available in the right sidebar of the homepage at dianetarantini.com)
Topics discussed on the podcast episode
-Help your child make a list of 5+ safe adults they can talk to if they feel unsafe about anything. (ie. Grandparent, school counselor, piano teacher, favorite aunt or uncle, soccer coach, etc.)
Enter those adults’ phone numbers into your child’s phone. If they don’t have a phone yet, tuck a card with the info into their backpack and make sure they know where to find it. You can also add your child’s pertinent info: name, address, your phone number, etc..
Personal Safety Plans
-Create Personal Safety Plans for every situation your child is concerned about.
If _____, then I will _____.
· If my clothing catches on fire, then I will stop, drop, and roll.
· If someone sends me inappropriate photos, then I will tell my parent or caregiver.
· If I lose my parent at the grocery store, then I will go to the customer service desk.
· If a stranger at the park asks me to look for their puppy, then I will find my parent to ask permission.
–Speak with your child about pornography. Offer to answer any question they have about sex so they don’t need to turn to pornography. Make this part of your conversations about drugs, alcohol, smoking/vaping, birth control, etc..
-Activate the parental monitoring systems on all your devices: phones, tablets, gaming systems, laptops, desktops, etc.. Consider paid monitoring systems like https://www.bark.us. FYI, the Bark website has a fantastic blog. This post tells you how to blog PornHub and other pornography sites: https://www.bark.us/blog/how-to-block-pornhub/
Diane’s blog posts on the topic of pornography:
Pornography: Why kids are looking at it—it’s not why you think
Pornography and kids—What your child is learning
What’s driving child on child sexual abuse?