5 gifts to encourage child safety

Body Ownership, Intuition, Touch, Say No and Support Network:
each are important things to teach our kids for maximum child safety.

Make it easy by giving Christmas gifts that
teach personal safety through protective play.

Here’s five play/toy gift ideas – one for each of the BITSS model of protective Behaviour elements:

 

1. Body Ownership: GLOBES or Maps. Anything that shows countries or States within a country.  I like to use Globe pencil sharpeners (pictured) They are great for teaching boundaries and for sharpening those pencils for other BITSS activities.  Use the globe to show that every country has a boundary. The boundary shows the body of the country. Most of these countries have armies that help to protect the boundary. Our clothes are like an army. They help to protect our body and give a sign to other people that certain parts of our body are private – the parts we wear underwear or swimming costumes over. And…every time your child sharpens their pencil remind them to sharpen their wits (Intuition) about protecting their body. You can purchase the globe pencil case from most variety stores or from our Protective Play shop for $4.50.

2. Intuition: Stuffed animals. Animals are great for showing off their early warning signs. Animals have not had it trained out of them: there warning signs remain an automatic process just like when we are cold we get goose bumps. When dogs are bothered by the presence of another dog the hairs on their backs are automatically raised and they often bare their teeth. This is the dog’s early warning sign telling its opponent to back off! When we scare, annoy or hurt an animal, no matter how cute they are, their body tells us to leave them alone. Because we fear being hurt by them we tend to become sensible and back off.  Sometimes thought, the cutest and safest looking things can be the deadliest. I use the little dogs pictured to teach about intuition. This cute little puppy has the sweetest face, but, it might have sharp claws. Ouch! Not so nice now. Purchase any stuffed animal and adapt the dialogue to suit your circumstance. Pictured puppy available in our protective play store for $3.50.
3. Touch: Soap. Create your own Natural Soap Kits. Bath time offers a wonderful opportunity to talk about Good Touch/Bad Touch. Sometime Mum or Dad may have to touch your private parts to wash them, but a washing touch is quick. It becomes a bad touch if Mum or Dad, or anyone else, keep doing it over and over again. Having a bath is a good touch when the water smells nice and the soap is smooth and lovely. A bad touch is when the soap stings your eyes or your private parts. This natural soap doesn’t sting and smells fantastic. Simple enough for a child to make, this soap does no harm to either child or environment. Before the soap sets, add a mini toy and watch your child long for bath time so they can use the soap containing their treasure. Don’t forget to talk about how the treasure matches up to either body ownership, intuition, touch, say no or support network. Kit contains: 500gm pure melt & mold soap base, 2 Fragrant Oils, 2 Soap Colors, 1 pure essential oil, 2 soap molds, 1 pkt Herbal Botanicals, & instruction booklet. Retail value of items in this kit is $47. Perfect for home, soap making in the classroom, expressive therapy activities (use a symbol of choice to hide in soap), or have a soap making party to make protective behaviours fun and interesting. $30.00 ea. (kit makes around 6 cakes of safe soap).

   

   

4. Say No: Smencils – Good scents pencils. Say no to harming our environment. Keep kids safe from all harms. Use Smencils during protective play: gourmet-scented pencils made from 100% recycled newspapers. Draw a picture of how your body looks when it is trying to “say no”. Write a list of words/statements that mean “say no”. Saying “no” makes good scents. Made from recycled newspaper instead of wood, Smencils sharpen (consider using the globe pencil sharpener and, while sharpening, talk about body ownership AND saying no) the same as other pencils but create a good touch for the olfactory sense. Keep the shavings too. They smell “scentsible”. Each Smencil comes packaged in its own Freshness Tube. Manufacturers guarantee that when stored in the tube, scent lasts for two years. Our set of 10 Smencils contains one each of the following scents: Bubblegum, Cherry , Cookie Dough, Grape, Sarsparilla, Cinnamon, Watermelon, Pineapple, Orange , Peppermint. Sold as a set of 10 ($12.00), a set of 5 ($6.00) or singularly ($1.20 ea). Available in our online store.
   
5. Support Network: Finger Puppets. I like to use Australian animals, particularly a Galah and a Kangaroo. Only a Galah gives in to peer pressure. But, Galah’s are sometimes cool. They tell their friends and family everything – even if the Galah has done something silly and they’re scared they’re going to get into trouble. Pull two tail feathers from the Galah: one to remind you not to give into peer pressure and the other to remind you to talk, talk, talk. Yep, even about silly things you think you may have done. Say no to peer pressure. Say no to keeping secrets (nice surprises are okay though). Make like a Kangaroo and hop away from danger and people who may want to hurt you. Kangaroos are strong. Nobody disses them for jumping out of harms way. When I grow up, I want to be a Kangaroo. I had better start practicing now by listening to my intuition and saying no to danger. Hop away, hop away. $5.00 ea from our store or buy them from any decent variety store.

 

Do not forget our double Christmas book deal -
two protective behaviour (Body ownership) junior fiction chapter books (pictured left)
for the price of one!

Buy one to help keep your child safe and
get a second one, FREE,
to give to a friend or relative.