Today’s post is from 2011 Hearts at Home Workshop Speaker, Rob Currie. A recording of Dr. Currie’s popular workshop, What Your Preschooler Desperately Wants to Tell You is available online here.  You can also visit Rob’s website at www.ilovemypreschooler.com for more encouragement.

Today Rob is joining in our Vision Partner effort at Hearts at Home.  The first 20 new monthly vision partners of $5 or more a month, who make their commitment today, will receive a free copy of Rob’s book, Preschool Wisdom.  You can join the vision effort here!

Now here’s Rob’s post that he wrote for Hearts at Home moms in light of the recent incident at Penn State:

The sexual abuse story at Penn State University has prompted many parents to consider what they can do to protect their children from that type of abuse.

The best strategy to protect your child from being sexually abused is to have a strong positive relationship with him or her. This may not seem like much of a defense, but it is the number one thing you can do to protect your child.

There are two reasons for this:

• The first reason is that kids who are not close to their parents are more vulnerable to sexual predators. They’re vulnerable because perpetrators lure children by promising them a close relationship with them as a caring adult. This offer seems particularly attractive to a child who doesn’t receive attention and affection at home. Think of it like this. If a man was trying to get a youngster to eat grimy food from a garbage can, who’d be more likely to eat it? Would it be a child who’s well fed or a child who hasn’t eaten in three days?
  
• The second reason that kids from an unstable home are more vulnerable is that these kids have no one to tell about the abuser. Pedophiles know this. They seek out kids who don’t have interested parents to turn to for protection. Some abusers will even ask around, interviewing other children to find the one who doesn’t have good support at home. Then they’ll target that kid for abuse.

This is a good reminder to us to keep our life balanced so we are emotionally and physically available to our kids, no matter whether they are preschoolers or teenagers. When we’re too busy, we don’t have time to listen or to be in tune with our family.

So hug your kids today. Listen with interest after you ask them about their day. Play a game with them. Ask them about how they feel about things going on in their life.  Give them a compliment. 

And tell them you love them. More than once.