DealsDirect has cottoned onto the advertising strength of the blogosphere. They have dangled a competition carrot in front of the eyes of we Aussie Bloggers: Blog it to win it: Australian Blogger Competition

For a chance to WIN a new laptop, a 22″ LCD Widescreen Monitor, or an Anyview Hawkeye 10 megapixel web cam all we Aussie bloggers have to do is pick any product from the Deals Direct website and describe how to use it in a unique and interesting way.

Move over you Aussie Bloggers, I don’t do normal or boring, and everything I do has a child protection slant with a necklace of ethics and corporate social responsibility. How could I possibly pass up pinning protective behaviours to an item from Deals Direct?!

The BITSS model of protective behaviours takes every day play and household items and turns them into protective triggers of child safety. Being surrounded with protective reminders helps to keep our kids safe. I have long bought my protective play stocks from Deals Direct. A regular customer of their bulk and wholesale lots, my office cupboards are lined with toys and trinkets that are utilised in protective play parties, trainings and in our therapy rooms.

A hard decision to narrow it down, here’s my choice of animal toy from Deals Direct to fit to the BITSS model of Protective Behaviours:

6 x Color Me Pets Washable Pets with Markers

Colour Me Pets are the pets you can create, colour, personalise! This gift pack includes 6 of the coolest animals, a cat, dog, frog, horse, elephant and fish– complete with 6 water based markers for you to decorate them with. Draw patterns, write messages, or have your friends sign them! Best of all, once you’re tired of your decorations you can simply throw them in the washing machine and start again. How cool is that?

FEATURES:

• 6 Colour Me Pets with Markers.
• Includes:
  • Cat.
  • Fish.
  • Dog.
  • Horse.
  • Elephant.
  • Frog.
  • 6 special coloured markers.
• Rewash, redecorate!
• Unique plush design that allows you to colour and decorate the animals with the markers provided, then wash and start again!
• Great way to keep kids occupied when travelling, in hospital and more.
• Includes 6 water based pens for customising each colour me pet.
• Can be washed and used over and over!
• Paint by numbers templates on animals – but you can decorate them as you please!
• Suitable for ages 3+.

Manufacturer’s Recommended Retail Price*: $99.95.
DealsDirect Price: Only $84.95 + $9.95 Shipping (Australia-wide flat rate)

How would I use this product in protective play? Animals are great for teaching kids about intuition. Intuition is the funny body feelings (early warning signs) that we all get at different times. Sometimes intuition is nothing more than our fears taking over our body and thoughts but often intuition is our body screaming at us to listen to what is really happening around us. Intuition needs to be clearly taught to our children. Far too often, I have heard children and women say, after the fact, “If only I’d listened to my intuition.”

Animals are great for showing off their early warning signs and teaching children what to do when they have early warning signs. Animals have not had the feelings trained out of them: it is 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 physical early warning sign telling its opponent to back off!
• Cats automatically flick their tails and flatten their ears.

When we scare, annoy or hurt an animal their body tells us to leave them alone. Because we fear being hurt by them we tend to become sensible and back off. And so it is for perpetrators of child sexual abuse. If a child displays their early warning signs the perpetrator will back off. The child is telling them it is not safe, that there will be a consequence to the abusive behaviour. The child becomes the hunter and the perpetrator runs.

Ask your child what their early warning sign is for any different situation or around certain animals: do they feel like they have a tiger in their tummy trying to get out, or can they feel the hairs on the back of their neck standing up? Encourage your child to describe how they are feeling, and don’t laugh at their descriptions. Remember that children don’t have an adult vocabulary. The classic example of this is a child saying they have a headache in their stomach. They know they have a pain but can’t describe it in detail. It is up to us to help them to find the right words to describe how they are feeling. How are they ever going to do this if we don’t help them pinpoint feelings in a range of different (happy, sad, scary, etc.) situations? Once your child knows their feelings of danger or fear, they can remove themselves from the situation and tell you about it.

Use the Color Me Pets to begin discussing early warning signs and feelings. Because of the ability to colour or art up the material washable pets, conversations around emotional intelligence are neither threatening or constipated. The toy animal offers a barrier and the child is actively engaged in a process of protective play.

A beautiful set of animals for home, therapy room or class room, these make for excellent protective play triggers for keeping child abuse at bay.

You’ve seen above how to use the Color Me Pet Cat or Dog, but what about the other animals in the set?

• How I might use a frog: Frog’s hop away from danger and use their mouths to call for help – croak, croak, croak. Can you show me how you’d be like a frog or where you feel your “hop away from danger” feeling?

• How I might use a fish: some fish are predators, some are lovely (just like people). Some beautiful fish are dangerous and some of the ugliest fish in the world do the best job at keeping the reef safe (just like people). It pays to know who’s swimming in your pond and to not trust any of the fish until you’ve really checked them all out.

• How I might use a horse: Horses can’t use their words to get angry at people but they sure can use their legs and their head. They are the kings of giving dirty looks to people who might just be a bit mean or who get too close to their personal body space.If a horse senses you are a bad person they will kick out and bare their teeth while they wildly throw their head around. Their body say, “no horsing around with me buddy – you hurt me,you’ll be in trouble.”

• How I might use an elephant: Elephants hang together in herds. They know that even though they are big and strong, that sticking with a safety network of other elephants is the best way to stay safe. When the elephant at the front smells or sees danger, it uses its trunk to trumpet a safety warning to the entire jungle. When I grow up, I want to be an elephant – big and wise and safe.

Finally, an additional benefit to the Color Me Pets are the 6 water based pens and a pet that can be washed and used over and over. With the pens I would have the child draw on the animal’s private parts. We all have private parts and it is against the law for humans to be rude and touch animal’s private parts. Did you know that it is against the law for adults to touch kids private parts too? If ever anyone tries to touch your private parts, I want you to make like an animal and hop, run, swim, bark, etc., away from danger and tell, tell, tell someone. That’s what animals do and that’s why we love animals so much.

Here’s a protective play idea for snakes: Child Protection Party Game with Snake Bite To turn any animal into a protective trigger you merely need to identify how that animal interacts successfully with their environment. What do they do that keeps them safe and how can we copy them?

For more protective play ideas designed to keep kids safe from sexual assault, help yourself to a FREE copy of Parent Sense, a 12 page protective play tutorial jam packed with games and activities designed around the BITSS model of protective behaviors. Rest assured in the fact that most of the protective play items I have used to demonstrate these play based activities have come from DealsDirect.