Pesach Safety: Protecting Children from Abuse #shorts

It's really important that we all understand that Pesach is a most beautiful time of year. But statistically, it can also be a very dangerous time for children. Large gatherings, unfamiliar spaces, disrupted routines, and distracted parents can create a perfect condition for abuse to occur and go unnoticed. Awareness isn't being paranoid. It's protection. >> Just to echo some of what Rabbi Harwood was saying, I think there's never a wrong time to have what we like to call a healthy boundaries conversation with our children. Those can be obviously different at different ages, always age-appropriate. Even a five- or seven-year-old can be spoken to about healthy boundaries, as well as 13- and 15-year-old and an 18-year-old. And these are things that we need to be talking to our children about every so often. You know, the the common times that people perk up and think about this is when their children are going to be away from home for extended periods of time, like before they go off to Yeshiva, a Mesivta, to a school, or before they go to sleepaway camp. But really before Yom Tov, it's a great time as well. It can be a short conversation one-on-one with each child, I would recommend, because each child's at a different stage and age, where you just set speak about at an age-appropriate way the idea that it's never okay for somebody else to be trying to look, show, or touch at different private parts of the body, uh parts that are normally covered by bathing suits, uh acting in certain ways that make you feel weird or just feels off. Anything that has that kind of feeling to it, you need to come and tell you need to get out of there and tell us right away. Tell the parents right away. It's never snitching. I like to always just say the phrase, it's not snitching, it's saving. That means, you know, snitching is the rebbe told the class, don't eat don't eat any snacks now. And some kid is sneaking a little snack in the back of the class, and you raise your hand and say, "Oh, rebbe, he's eating in class." We could call that snitching. But anytime it's something dangerous or unhealthy, it's not snitching, it's saving. And so, once we understand those two points, you always, even if you just have a doubt, maybe this was a little weird, you come and talk to us about it. Worst-case scenario, we have a nice conversation and it's okay, and we move forward. But it's really important to always tell us about anything that's going on. That's the first idea that I think I would just put out there in terms of making sure our children are prepared in and of themselves, regardless of what we can do proactively, but preventatively what we can do to help our children be careful as we go into the wonderful Yom Tov.