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Speaker 1: Hello, Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. What does it

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Speaker 1: actually take for a child to tell us when something

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Speaker 1: is wrong? And I'm talking about the heavy stuff. I'm

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Speaker 1: talking about body safety abuse? And when they do tell

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Speaker 1: us that something's wrong, how do we respond in those

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Speaker 1: first critical moments because our response can change everything. John

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Speaker 1: Cartermonne is a body safety educator and a disclosure response

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Speaker 1: specialist and he knows this territory, unfortunately from the insight,

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Speaker 1: not just from the books. Sexually abuse. At the age

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Speaker 1: of six, he spent over thirty years on a healing

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Speaker 1: journey that has taught him something vital. Connection and belonging

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Speaker 1: are not just nice to have is They're the foundation

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Speaker 1: that allows children to survive trauma without it defining their future. Today.

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Speaker 1: John works with families and educators to create the conditions

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Speaker 1: where children feel safe enough to speak up and where

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Speaker 1: adults know how to respond when children open their mouths

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Speaker 1: and say those words that no parent ever wants to hear.

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Speaker 1: John cartermon with me on the Happy Families podcast is next. Hello,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Happy Families podcast, where we give you

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Speaker 1: real parenting solutions every single day. This is Australia's most

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Speaker 1: downloaded parenting podcast, John Cardamone, I've already done the intro.

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Speaker 1: Welcome and thanks for spending some time with me today.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much, doctor Justin Colson. It's an absolute

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Speaker 2: pleasure to be here and for you to give some

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Speaker 2: time to a really important topic.

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Speaker 1: John, just before we start the conversation, a quick heads

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Speaker 1: up if parents hadn't already ascertained, we're going to deal

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Speaker 1: with some pretty heavy stuff today. This might be one

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Speaker 1: where you think about whether the kids listened to it.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps you want to listen to it first before you

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Speaker 1: put it in front of the kids. Just some sensitive

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Speaker 1: information and content coming your way. So John, let's start

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Speaker 1: with you your story to the degree that you're comfortable

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Speaker 1: sharing it, and in the short time that we have

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Speaker 1: you were six when you're sexually abused. You've described that

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Speaker 1: two year experience and the thirty years plus since then

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Speaker 1: as a healing journey. Tell us briefly what happened and

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Speaker 1: what it's taught you about what children need most when

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Speaker 1: they're going through something like this.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, thank you Justin. Again, As you mentioned, when I

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Speaker 2: was six years old, I started to be sexually abused

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Speaker 2: by a family member, a trusted family member at that

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Speaker 2: point in time, and when I wanted to disclose, I

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Speaker 2: was disclosing, but I was disclosing through behavior. And we know,

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Speaker 2: well most of us know, hopefully that behavior is all behaviors,

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Speaker 2: is a form of communication. I just didn't have the

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Speaker 2: skills to be able to do that verbally, and there

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Speaker 2: was a number of reasons why. But took me two

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Speaker 2: years to be able to disclose to my mum. And look,

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Speaker 2: this is no one's fault apart from the perpetrator. But

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Speaker 2: I truly believe if we start body safety education and

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Speaker 2: really creating those preconditions for our children to feel safe,

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Speaker 2: what unsafe can feel like, what it can look like.

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Speaker 2: I really think there's a lot of prevention work that

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Speaker 2: can happen and really have an impact on over ninety

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Speaker 2: percent of children that are sexually abused. It happens to

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Speaker 2: someone that they know. So I just to add on

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Speaker 2: to that before I finish up that little loop, I

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Speaker 2: want your listeners. I want to challenge their thoughts and

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Speaker 2: what they know. A lot of good things come out

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Speaker 2: of the eighties and nineties, a lot of good footing

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Speaker 2: AFL I'm talking about, But one thing that I think

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Speaker 2: needs to be a little bit on the back burner

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Speaker 2: and have an open mind. Is stranger danger. I think

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Speaker 2: if we change the conversations to strange behaviors. I'm not

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Speaker 2: saying that strangers don't do bad things, but as I said,

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Speaker 2: when it comes to sexual abuse, over ninety percent of

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Speaker 2: that is happening to people that we do know, to

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Speaker 2: the trold in particular. So I think instead of stranger danger,

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Speaker 2: I teach with my kids strange behaviors, which incorporates everyone.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, John really important. I remember talking with my kids

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Speaker 1: one time, just said, one day you might need to

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Speaker 1: rely on the goodness of a stranger, and if I

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Speaker 1: teach you that strangers are dangerous, then you could end

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Speaker 1: up in a whole lot more trouble. So talking to

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Speaker 1: them about which strangers they might approach first, and unfortunately

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Speaker 1: there is a hierarchy. We know that some people are

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Speaker 1: going to be safer than others, but talking to them

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Speaker 1: about being confident enough to approach a stranger and asking

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Speaker 1: for help if they need to is really valuable. And

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Speaker 1: also recognizing where most abuse comes from tends to be

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Speaker 1: people who are known and trusted. There's a phrase that

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Speaker 1: you used as you were answering that question and sharing

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Speaker 1: your story that definitely needs to be unpacked a little deeper.

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Speaker 1: You talked about the preconditions for safety. So preconditions is

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Speaker 1: this idea that children feel safe enough to disclose and

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Speaker 1: most parents can get their head around that. I need

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Speaker 1: to create an environment where I'm kind and I'm present

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Speaker 1: and my children can tell me anything, right, and every

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Speaker 1: parent gets that. But you've shared you really, I know

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Speaker 1: you behave You was challenging, but there was nothing explicit here.

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Speaker 1: You weren't saying, mum, something bad is happening. There's abuse.

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Speaker 1: It's happening in my life right now. So many kids,

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Speaker 1: the majority of kids probably still stay silent about abuse,

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Speaker 1: and they do it for years and even decades. So

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Speaker 1: my question for you here is to create those preconditions

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Speaker 1: for safety? What are we missing? Like, what actually creates

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Speaker 1: the conditions where a child really does feel safe enough

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Speaker 1: to speak it?

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Speaker 2: Really? It's it's really complex, but it's not. And when

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Speaker 2: I say it's complex, because as you would know better

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Speaker 2: than me, there's no parenting one oh one book because

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Speaker 2: every household and every community is different. But when it

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Speaker 2: comes down to it, it's really simplistic. You look at

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Speaker 2: Maslow's hierarchy of needs that seem to have vanished in schools,

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Speaker 2: in teaching, But it really comes down to the baseline

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Speaker 2: of that is that all children need to have connection, security,

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Speaker 2: and feel safe. And how do we do that, Well,

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Speaker 2: it's by communication. It's by setting boundaries. And when I

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Speaker 2: do say boundaries, all children do need boundaries. And that

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Speaker 2: looks different in every household. Again, but there needs to

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Speaker 2: be open communication. And the other flip side of that

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Speaker 2: is the way we respond to a child spilling milk

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Speaker 2: or water. If we're responding in a really angry manner,

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Speaker 2: well that's going to set up conditions where that you know,

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Speaker 2: when there's abuse happening to a child, a lot of

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Speaker 2: the time, they'll think it's their fault. So their condition already,

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Speaker 2: or their pre disposition to that is that they can't

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Speaker 2: tell because you know, I spill some milk and water

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Speaker 2: and I get yelled out. So that's a really tiny thing,

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Speaker 2: but I think that's a really important reminder that we

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Speaker 2: need to create those conditions where children feel safe that

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Speaker 2: they can speak to us, even the minor things, because

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Speaker 2: those minor things really make up the big things. Now

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Speaker 2: you're just discussing how how do we create those preconditions

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Speaker 2: for the big things. But it could be bullying at school,

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Speaker 2: it could be being teased, and then it continues online.

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Speaker 2: The way I think about it is we're really good

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Speaker 2: at teaching maths, you know, fractions and decimals, and we

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Speaker 2: know we need to teach that explicitly, and if our

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Speaker 2: children are struggling with that as parents, we get worried

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Speaker 2: and we get a tutor. But this is no different

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Speaker 2: when it comes to body safety esseducation. It needs to

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Speaker 2: be ongoing, it needs to be explicit. And when I

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Speaker 2: say explicit, I'm not saying that it's a dangerous conversation

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Speaker 2: where everyone you know, the blinds are shut and we're

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Speaker 2: having eye to eye conversations. It's around the dinner table.

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Speaker 2: I mean with my five year old, she'll say, oh, Daddy,

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Speaker 2: I know what to do if someone touches my bum,

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Speaker 2: and so it's just as innocent as that. And then

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Speaker 2: your role modeling with your partner and saying, yeah, someone

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Speaker 2: hit me to that work, but I was calm, I

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Speaker 2: moved away. It's all those kind of conversations. But one

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Speaker 2: thing is role modeling to children, because they can't be

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Speaker 2: what they can't see. A lot of the time, So

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Speaker 2: it's about role modeling. And if you're a single parent,

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Speaker 2: I know the challenges. Well, not personally, I'm luckily enough

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Speaker 2: to still be married with my beautiful wife. But it's

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Speaker 2: having constant, explicit, simple conversations around how to be body

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Speaker 2: safe and role modeling that and that's the start of

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Speaker 2: the preconditions and that can look a lot different in

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Speaker 2: lots of different households.

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Speaker 1: Youah two things on this first off, In my family,

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Speaker 1: we have at least two formal conversations around these topics

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Speaker 1: a year with our kids. We sit down the latter

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Speaker 1: room and say, all right, today we're going to talking

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Speaker 1: about blah blah blah, and if we go and sometimes

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Speaker 1: they're like, oh, we've had this conversation, and yet it's

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Speaker 1: always a productive chat. It's so funny because as parents

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Speaker 1: you kind of go, oh, I can't believe we're talking

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Speaker 1: about this, and then you start the conversation and generally

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Speaker 1: goes really well, like the kids are interested and they

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Speaker 1: want to engage. Second thought that I had as I

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Speaker 1: was listening to what you said, John, is the preconditions

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Speaker 1: are actually set with the little things, right, like when

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Speaker 1: they can talk to you about the little things, and

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Speaker 1: they know they've got your attention. That repeated pattern of

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Speaker 1: behavior sets things up so that they know that you'll

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Speaker 1: pay attention to the big things. If they know that

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Speaker 1: you won't listen to the little things, sometimes they're less

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Speaker 1: likely to come to you for the big things. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: just as I was listening to I thought, these are

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Speaker 1: these are a couple a couple of things that are

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Speaker 1: jumping out at me. After the break, we're going to

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Speaker 1: have a look at what to do if your child

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Speaker 1: does disclose abuse or something traumatic or challenging. Plus how

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Speaker 1: to know when to step in with your own connection

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Speaker 1: versus clinical intervention and stay with us. We're back. It's

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Speaker 1: the Happy Families Podcast. John Cartermoone is my guest today

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Speaker 1: talking about how to keep our kids safe, how to

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Speaker 1: have those big conversations about body safety and child protection

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Speaker 1: and abuse. John, if child does disclose abuse or something traumatic. Actually,

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Speaker 1: before I asked the question, a quick story, two stories.

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Speaker 1: Somebody quite close to me was abused as a child

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Speaker 1: somewhere around about ten eleven maybe twelve years of age.

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Speaker 1: There was a visiting family member from overseas who made

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Speaker 1: an approach to this person and their friend who were

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Speaker 1: having a hangout at another family member's house. The friend

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Speaker 1: was able to get away without any issues, but this

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Speaker 1: particular child was harmed by this man. When she went

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Speaker 1: to her mom and explained what had happened, her mum

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Speaker 1: literally turned around, slapped her in the face and said,

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Speaker 1: don't ever speak about that again. I mean just it's

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Speaker 1: jaw droppingly tragic to hear a story like that, and

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Speaker 1: hopefully breathtakingly unusual as well, nevertheless true story. The second

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Speaker 1: story that I always share when I'm talking about this

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Speaker 1: is my mum shared this when she was quite young.

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Speaker 1: Her father had a friend over though I was spending

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Speaker 1: some time together, and the man, when my grandfather left

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Speaker 1: the room, made an indecent approach to my mum. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't serious, there was nothing heavy about it. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: the kind of thing where she's going to be traumatized

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Speaker 1: for a lifetime. But it was absolutely indecent and absolutely inappropriate,

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Speaker 1: and she when the man left the house, because my

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Speaker 1: grandfather came back into the room moments later. When he left,

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Speaker 1: my mum told my grandfather what had happened, and he

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Speaker 1: got down on his knees in front of her. He apologized,

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Speaker 1: and he said that man will never ever ever set

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Speaker 1: foot in our house again. And I'm so glad you

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Speaker 1: told me. I mean, you couldn't get a bigger contrast

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Speaker 1: between those two responses. If a child discloses something concerning,

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Speaker 1: whether it's abuse or just I felt really uncomfortable in

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Speaker 1: this situation, whether it's our child or they're telling us

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Speaker 1: about a friend or something like that, getting that response

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Speaker 1: right matters because I imagine that our instincts are going

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Speaker 1: to go in all sorts of different directions. What do

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Speaker 1: you counsel parents to say in this situation?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to start off with a quote and

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Speaker 2: then I'll quickly answer that question if that's okay. So

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Speaker 2: the way you respond to a disclosure can either start

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Speaker 2: the healing process or prolong it. And your two stories

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Speaker 2: absolutely show the two different pathways. Unfortunately or fortunately for

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Speaker 2: that person that was believed from your grandfather, But in

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Speaker 2: the moment, it is absolutely critical to believe, acknowledge, and

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Speaker 2: validate what you've just heard. If there's nothing anyone else

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Speaker 2: gets from this podcast is if there's a disclosure, it

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Speaker 2: is absolutely vital through your body language and the way

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Speaker 2: you respond verbally is that they need, and whether it's

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Speaker 2: a child or an adult, because it takes on average,

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Speaker 2: it can take twenty four years for someone to disclose

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Speaker 2: their abuse. So whether a child or an adult disclosers,

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Speaker 2: it's absolutely vital that you believe, validate, and acknowledge, and

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Speaker 2: on top of that, you need to stay calm. Children

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Speaker 2: are like sponges, they're like mirrors. If you're shocked, you're angry,

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Speaker 2: that's just going to scare them. You know, you don't

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Speaker 2: have to be a medical scientist understand that, and there's

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Speaker 2: some people that might not have an understanding. But children

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Speaker 2: need to feel safe. Find out a compliment that a

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Speaker 2: child has come to you because they feel safe enough

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Speaker 2: with you. And there's nothing wrong with panicking. I say

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Speaker 2: to parents, if you're like a swan, you're really calm

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Speaker 2: up above the water, but you're panicking underneath. That's absolutely fine,

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Speaker 2: But the child needs to know that you're got it

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Speaker 2: under control, you're confident, and you know what you're going

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Speaker 2: to do next. It's also important that you're not an interrogator.

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Speaker 2: You're not questioning, because if you're I mean when I

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Speaker 2: say questioning, it's not who did it? Why didn't you

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Speaker 2: say something earlier that could really cause huge amount of

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Speaker 2: trauma to the child, more so than the actual trauma. Look,

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Speaker 2: I've got a framework that's called be Karma, and it's

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Speaker 2: not rocket science. However, I know people need a structure

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Speaker 2: and they need predictability, especially with people that are dealing

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Speaker 2: with disclosures all the time. But again, if there is

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Speaker 2: a disclosure, being calm, believing, acknowledging and validating what you've

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Speaker 2: just heard is absolutely critical to start the healing process.

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Speaker 1: Great advice, John, I love the acronym, I love the

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Speaker 1: way that works. We could talk about this for a

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Speaker 1: long long time. Unfortunately this has a podcast for the time,

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Speaker 1: poor parent who just wants answers. Now, if people want

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Speaker 1: to know more about your work and want to either

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Speaker 1: get in touch or at least get some more resources

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Speaker 1: because they've got some concerns, so they just want to

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Speaker 1: be across this, what's the best way for them to

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Speaker 1: do that?

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Speaker 2: For your listeners, if they want to go to johncartermone

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Speaker 2: dot com dot au. If they say I heard you

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Speaker 2: one justin Colson's Happy Families podcast, I'd be more than

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Speaker 2: happy to send my one pager on be Karma. So

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Speaker 2: becarma it all stands for something such as believe and

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Speaker 2: validate and so forth, so be more than happy to

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Speaker 2: send that to them. And it's just a great resource

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Speaker 2: to have. And you might think this will never happen

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Speaker 2: to you, but unfortunately want in four children today are

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Speaker 2: sexually abused and that's just what's reported.

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Speaker 1: It's enough to send chills. Unfortunately we have to talk

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Speaker 1: about these topics because the world is not perfect. John,

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Speaker 1: thanks for having this important conversation with us today. Really

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Speaker 1: appreciate you taking time out to be on the pod.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Justin, and hopefully your audience gets

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Speaker 2: something out of this conversation. Thanks again.

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Speaker 1: That's John Cartermone. You can check out his website Johncartermone

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Speaker 1: dot com dot au. The Happy Families podcast is produced

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Speaker 1: by Justin Roland from Bridge Media and mmhabits provides additional

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Speaker 1: research and admin support. If you would like additional info

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Speaker 1: and resources to make your family happier, We'll link to

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Speaker 1: John's website so that you can contact him to get

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Speaker 1: that one pager and Happy Families dot com dot au

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Speaker 1: mm HM