Boundary skills – including consent and body autonomy – are powerful tools for building stronger, happier relationships at every age. By making boundary skills part of your daily life with kids from birth, you are giving them tools for a lifetime of stronger, happier relationships!

Boundary skills also happen to be the most powerful skills we know of to keep kids safe from abuse – including sexual abuse.

The good news is that when adults make boundary skills part of daily life with young children to support fun, connection, and communication, they are also helping kids build skills that can help them be safe from abuse – without giving them scary information about abuse.

If you take care of a young child, then your everyday life is full of great opportunities to teach and use boundary skills in order to make your time together more fun – for them as well as for you.

We are experts at helping adults see those opportunities and turn them into fun, positive, teachable moments. When adults use Kipower boundary skills and principles every day to…

• resolve conflict
• make agreements
• address misunderstandings
• improve sibling communication
• address hurtful behavior calmly and confidently
• make tickling, roughhousing, and other games safer and more fun

…then, kids get a lot of practice with the boundary, consent, and body autonomy skills that can help them have more fun and fewer problems with people throughout their lives.

Here are a few resources to get you started – and we have many more books and free resources you can use!

Consent Skills for All Ages
Kidpower 30-Skill Challenge Coaching eHandbook
Kidpower Skills to Persist in Protecting Personal Boundaries Through the 5 Levels of Intrusion™
BOUNDARY POSTERS
SAFETY SIGNALS

Worrying about leaving babies and young children with other people is normal. And, worrying does not keep kids safe! Learning what to watch out for and how to step in when you have a concern will help you feel more confident and will help them be safe.

The good news is that dangers from caregivers can almost always be prevented. Letting someone else take care of the children we love means trusting this person with the most precious part of our lives. Parents and guardians are responsible for selecting and supervising the care of their children, whether the caregivers are individuals or the staff of programs like child care centers and schools.

At the same time, it is important to keep your balance. You do not want to overreact to an upsetting possibility in a way that damages your child’s trust in being left with other people.

Our article Choosing Safe People to Care for Your Children gives information you can use right away as you are considering leaving your child in someone else’s care.

Even when someone has provided care for your child for a long time, is someone you trust, or is a member of your family, it is still important to respond to ‘red flag’ behaviors in order to keep your child safe. Here are 5 examples:

1. Anyone who disregards your safety rules or tries to make you feel wrong for having concerns.
2. Any adult who wants to be your child’s friend but not your friend.
3. A situation that seems too good to be true – because it often is.
4. Someone who continually asks that you trust them.
5. Someone who makes unsolicited promises.

This list is also in our bestselling book Doing Right By Our Kids: Protecting Child Safety at All Levels – which includes many more strategies for protecting children from harm. The articles below are from our free Resource library – use them now to learn strategies you can use right away.

In addition, communicating with caregivers is almost always adult-to-adult communication. Building your own adult-level boundary and advocacy skills will prepare you to approach difficult conversations – including with family members, teachers, day care providers, others caring for your child – with confidence. See our Relationship Skills and Fullpower Adult Safety resources for strategies you can learn and use to communicate effectively with people who might care for your child.

Choosing Safe People to Care for Your Children
Being Worthy of Trust to Keep Kids Safe from Abuse, Bullying, and Other Harm
Choosing a Therapist for Your Child or Yourself
Kidpower Safety Tips for Babysitters, Nannies, and Caregivers

At Kidpower, we believe that most people are good. Unfortunately, a few people do very destructive things, which can have a huge impact on everyone’s safety.

The reality is that anyone can be a potential danger to a child. Statistically, children are far more likely to be harmed by someone they know than by a stranger, which is why teaching about boundaries is so important. However, in even the safest of places, there is always a risk that children might be traumatized by getting lost or by having an adult do something dangerous, which is why children need safety plans to follow.

There is no substitute for supervising the people who are caring for your children. No matter where your children are, it is important to make sure that the people responsible for their well-being are ensuring a safe, respectful, caring environment where the adults are paying close attention and fully in charge.

What you can do to prepare your children to learn to protect their own well-being is to give them a strong foundation of the “People Safety” skills that Kidpower teaches. Most problems can be prevented if children and their adults have practiced how to

• ask for help
• set boundaries
• protect their feelings
• stay in charge of their bodies
• know the Safety Plan if they get lost
• follow your Stranger Safety rules
• check first with their grownups before they change their plan about where they are going, what they are doing, and who they are with.

It’s not enough just to tell children what to do; they also need to practice. Until children have the skill, the life experience, and the confidence to take charge of their safety on their own – whether that means on their own for a playdate, on their own in a room, on their own in the front yard, or any other example – it’s the job of adults to stay aware, together, and in charge of the child’s safety.

On a day-to-day level, children are most likely to deal with social problems such as getting their feelings hurt because they are being left out or someone says something unkind; reacting either too passively or too aggressively when they get frustrated; getting caught up in doing something potentially dangerous together; and not knowing how to persist in getting help from busy adults.

Not Even For A Second! A story about Kidpower’s underlying principle
Kidpower Answers for Parents of Small Children
People Safety for Toddlers
Resisting the Illusion of Safety
The ‘Uh Oh’ Feeling
How “Stranger Danger” Hurts Kids
Kidpower Stranger Safety Tips: Protecting Children from Stranger Abduction/Kidnapping
7 Kidpower Strategies for Keeping Your Child Safe

The truth is, no matter how old we are, most of the time the people who do things that bother us, irritate us, or make us feel upset are actually people we know and love!

Boundary skills are powerful tools for safe, strong relationships. Adult can use and model boundary skills from the moment a child is born to keep them safe and ensure that others are following your boundaries about what is and is not okay around your child.

To protect your child and support safe, strong relationships, you might choose to set boundaries with friends and family about specific behaviors around your child including:

• physical behaviors – like roughhousing, tickling, or hugging
• verbal behaviors – like joking, teasing, or talking about scary things
• habits – like substance use, speeding, or playing upsetting news stories kids can overhear

Of course, your friends and family get to set their boundaries, too. Sometimes, you may need to use your power to create physical and emotional distance in order to keep your young child safe if others are behaving in ways that put your child’s health, safety, or well-being at risk.

Kidpower’s Founding Principle is that the safety and well-being of a child are more important than anyone’s embarrassment, inconvenience, or offense. Keeping this in mind can help you make difficult decisions – and keep meaningful relationships safe and strong.

As your child grows, you will continue to give this protection and also guide them to set and respect boundaries. This will help them have stronger relationships with friends, family members, teachers, and others. Teaching children how to express and withdraw consent is part of boundary setting for all kinds of touch and attention about play, fun and affection – consent is NOT just about sexual behavior.

When adults use and teach boundary and consent rules throughout a child’s early years, teaching about consent and sexual behavior when they are older can be much easier because you have already developed a common language and set of skills about setting and respecting boundaries about touch and attention for play, fun, and affection for lots of other types of everyday situations.

So, making boundaries part of daily life as early as possible is one way to empower them with skills for a lifetime of safer, stronger relationships of all kinds!

Advocating for Your Kids with Adult Family Members and Friends
Keeping Playdates Fun and Safe
Why Affection and Teaching Should Be a Child’s Choice
Grandparenting: Supporting Strong Family Relationships
How to Make Family Gatherings Great Instead of Awful
Boundary and Consent Posters

Babies are born full of power! They have the power to move, to think, to make noise, to be aware, to grab, to bring things to their mouths…. These are a few examples of their inborn “kidpower”.

And, they have no life experience – they don’t understand how their power could help or harm – themselves or others.

It’s the job of young children to experiment with their power – and the job of adults to guide them and to keep everyone safe while they are learning.

Examples of young children experimenting with their power include wandering away, biting, screaming, throwing things, excluding, and using hurtful words.

Kidpower strategies equip adults to respond confidently with kindness, caring, compassion, and skill – to stop hurtful behaviors, to help kids make amends, and to help everyone practice safer ways to use their power.

Here are resources you can use now to turn these challenging situations into positive teachable moments:

Practice as a Management Tool for Unsafe, Disrespectful Behavior
Seven Positive Strategies for Managing Aggressive Behavior in Young Children
Kidpower Trash Can for Throwing Away Hurting Words
Taking the Power Out of the Word ‘Crybaby’
How Do I Stop MY Child From Bullying?
Little Books for Literal People
Managing Wandering for People with Autism

Until children have the skills and the life experience they need to take charge of their safety independently, they need caring adults aware of what they are doing, where they are going, and who they are with in order to help them be safe from harm – in person and, when they are older, online.

At the same time, adults are the ones responsible for helping children build those skills for independence by gradually giving them more opportunities to make choices. This is true even for very young children as they begin to express their preferences for things foods foods, clothes, toys, activities, and personal space.

The job of staying close while also giving space can be challenging. Many adults say that the moment they find a balance, their child grows and changes again – and so they have to find a new balance!

We are experts at equipping adults with tools to navigate this journey so they feel more prepared and more confident to protect children while also helping them develop age-appropriate skills for growing independence.

Here are resources to give you strategies for protecting young children while also helping them build confidence in their own skills for independence:

But WHY is this the Safety Rule?
Making a Safety Plan for Bathroom Accidents
“I want to go to the public bathroom by myself”
My child keeps talking to strangers! Help!”
Helicopters or Protectors?
Safety With Animals
Think and Check First

We are experts at preparing adults with the tools and information they need to use Kidpower skills, strategies, and methodology in their personal and professional lives with kids to:

• protect children from abuse, kidnapping, and other harm
• introduce and talk about safety without being scary
• teach ‘people safety’ as confidently as they teach manners, hygiene, and car safety

To protect children from birth, we offer adults-only workshops, online resources, and books for:

• parents, guardians, and other caregivers
• early childhood educators and childcare providers
• Health care, social service, and recreation program professionals serving young kids and families

To protect and empower children ages 3-7, we also offer:

• Familypower workshops for kids together with their parents/guardians
• Starting Strong workshops for groups of kids together with their teachers, care providers, coaches, or other youth group leaders

Use our resources now to keep your kids safe – and contact us with questions, requests, and workshop inquiries!

Kidpower’s core social emotional skills for being safe with people – like the core skills of hygiene and car safety – are the same at all ages. They include how to:

• Act aware, calm, and confident
• Protect yourself emotionally from hurtful words or behavior
• Manage emotional triggers to stay in charge of what you say and do
• Recognize what is and is not safe
• Move away from trouble physically, emotionally, and digitally
• Assess – and think first or check first before acting
• Set powerful and respectful boundaries
• Apply safety principles about touch and attention in healthy relationships
• Advocate assertively and persistently for help with safety problems
• Use your voice and body to stop an attack and get to safety

We teach adults how to introduce these skills from birth – just like they start introducing hygiene, car safety, and manners from birth!

And – just like the hygiene and car safety skills adults model with babies are the same skills those babies will use their whole lives to be safe – the Kidpower core social-emotional skills adults can begin modeling for babies are the same skills that will help them be safe with people, in person and online, as teens and adults.

In infancy, children begin learning these skills entirely through adult modeling – in the same way they start learning from adult modeling of hygiene and car safety habits like handwashing and looking both ways before crossing.

As children develop language, adults can teach Kidpower core skills with stories, puppets, songs, art, and games – in addition to modeling the core skills by using them all the time.

Use our resources and services to learn and apply these strategies yourself. Contact us with questions, requests, and workshop inquiries!