As children, we’re taught to listen to adults—but what happens when kids come across an adult with bad intentions?
According to RAINN, one in nine girls and one in 20 boys under the age of 18 will experience sexual abuse or assault.
“It’s a silent epidemic. It’s happening all over, it’s always been happening,” says Cherie Benjoseph, the director of national outreach and education for the Center for Child Counseling.
She has made it her life’s mission to educate both parents and children about boundaries and consent, including giving children the language they need to talk to a trusted adult. Benjoseph is also the founder of the Stay KidSafe! and CampSafe programs; more than 60,000 children and 50,000 adults have been empowered, and with CampSafe, more than 8,000 camp staff have taken the course. She also is the author of “My Body is Special and Belongs to Me.”
It’s easy to see why Boca magazine profiled her as the September/October Hometown Hero. With school back in session, we wanted to share more details from her interview that we couldn’t fit in the magazine.
What is the goal of your outreach and the programs for people who work with children?
It’s teaching children how to communicate, teaching children how to listen to their feelings, teaching children how to reach out to a trusted adult if they have a question or they’re confused by something. Teaching children that they have private parts. We say to the parents, they should teach them the proper names for their private parts.
We teach from a place of fun, not fear, and the kids love it. In the younger classes we sing, we’re up, we’re moving, it’s very interactive with the younger [students] all the way to grade five. We’re doing role playing and we’re teaching kids healthy boundaries, consent.
In CampSafe, there are tips for safety for campers. What is an example?
If a counselor is walking alone with a camper…and the supervisor drives by on their golf cart, because often they’re driving around the camp in a golf cart, and they will stop and say, “Hey, tell me about what you’re doing right now.” Not accusatory, but informational, because in general, we don’t want people one-on-one with campers in that way. And if they are one-on-one, they need to be visible, which in this scenario they were. But what if they said, “Oh, I’m going back to the cabin, this child is really, really tired and young, it’s like the youngest camper, we’re going to let them go to sleep.” That’s not an option, actually, because that’s against policy to be alone in the cabin with a camper like that. So it’s a matter of teaching these young people the policies and the procedures, but also the whys, what we’re trying to prevent.
How important is it to listen to children?
The idea is to give children appropriate language, and know that as the trusted adults, the safe adults in their lives, that we will listen. There are between 42 million and 65 million adults in the United States that are survivors of child sexual abuse. What do you think the average age of disclosure is…when they actually tell someone what happened? 52. Well, so most people never tell, and most if they do tell, they tell a really good friend, they tell their spouse, they tell the partner, and they’re telling it, and they’re dealing with it, after they’ve had their own children. So what our goal is to do in the changes in society is that we’re getting better at hopefully having disclosure happen earlier. So the healing process can start earlier.
How has what you know as a social worker impacted your parenting?
[Parents] would say, “Oh, my God, you must be so overprotective.” … I said, it’s the opposite. I want you to teach them the skills. I want you to understand how to vet babysitters, how to vet a camp, how to vet a school, meeting your kids’ friends, parents, how to ask questions, how to talk to them.
I have mixed feelings about [sleepovers]. I say, “What have you taught your child so that they can make safe decisions while they’re at the sleepover? And what kind of conversations have you had with those parents? And did you ask who’s going to be in the house while that kid is over?” … I would have a conversation with [my children]. How was it? What was the highlight? Did anything make you feel uncomfortable? What was the best part? And that’s how eventually, when they’re teenagers, they’re going to be the kid who’s going to call home and say, “I’m too drunk to drive home,”, or “You got to come pick me up,” instead of turning into chaos.
This Web Extra is from the September/October 2024 issue of Boca magazine. For more like this, click here to subscribe to the magazine.
