Your Body Belongs to You
by Cornelia Maude Spelman
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Book Reviews of Your Body Belongs to You
Book Review: Respecting Everybody's Body
Summary: 5 Stars
How I wish this delightful book existed when I was child. Until fairly recent years, most children were warned about the cliche stranger, but very seldom was the issue of predators children knew ever addressed. When I was a child, I honestly thought a double standard existed - improper touching was only frowned upon by one's caretakers if done by strangers. During those years, I wondered why nobody ever said if children had any recourse if they were confronted with "bad touches" by people they knew.
This is a wonderfully empowering book. It also dispels the myth of the candy-bearing stranger, lurking on playgrounds and parks if indeed he ever even existed. Statistics have shown that "bad touches" are very rarely done by strangers! The text is gentle and simple without being overly so; it is something I would happily present to every child from 2 on up as well. It is timeless; the message of assertiveness and respect for boundaries and the human body at large can never be over emphasized.
I also like the way the book encourages children not to keep secrets if they are approached and touched inappropriately or made to touch someone else against their will. Private parts are rightfully defined as the parts of the body one's underwear and bathing suits cover. My favorite point the book stressed was what to do if the touch is neither wanted nor welcome and that it is perfectly all right not to want to be touched in certain ways. The most important service this book does is distinguishes "good" and "bad" touches and that for the most part, hugs and kisses are perfectly fine and acceptable.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It will certainly help empower children of all ages and will also help to put an end to keeping harmful secrets. I also highly recommend in addition to this book Sandy Kleven's "The Right Touch: A Read Aloud Story to Help Prevent Child Sexual Abuse," Linda Walvoord Girard's "My Body is Private" and Peter Alsop's collection "Songs on Sex & Sexuality," most particularly the song "My Body," which addresses this topic in a sensitive and forthright manner.
Book Review: An excellent primer on welcome and unwelcome touch.
Summary: 5 Stars
I have two young children who were going to camp for the first time and I wanted something that was empowering and not scary. They haven't experienced sexual abuse, thank God, so this book was totally appropriate for them right now. Children who have had different experiences may need something more specific or graphic. But for young, inexperienced children I felt this book was awesome. I like the "Note to Parents" that provides some insights to parents just beginning to prepare their children for this issue. This book could be used to address any other types of inappropriate touching, not just the sexual type. This book *does* promote the child's autonomy appropriately.
People who think that this book doesn't promote enough "autonomy" on the child's part are suspect. That is subterfuge for "the child would 'choose' sexual touch with an adult" if they were given this "autonomy". Watch them. They are trying to manipulate you into thinking that "allowing" children to have more "autonomy" around who touches them is ok. Reader989898/ChildSafetyFirst (yes this is one person) is one of those people. Read his/her other reviews as well as the comments for his/her review of this book. I think Reader989898/ChildSafetyFirst is a classic real time example of a deviant trying to insinuate his/her twisted beliefs into mainstream thought. I've read that most deviants of this type have a very strong desire for validation.
We are the parents, we use common sense, empathy, education, and our gut to protect our children. Children will "play doctor" with each other or masturbate. This is nothing to be alarmed about and we deal with those issues according to our individual values (I'm committed to avoiding shame of course). Sexual touch by a much older (~2+ years depending on the kids involved) child or adult *is* something to protect your child from and empower them against. And this book does that.
I highly recommend this book.
Book Review: DISAPPOINTED!
Summary: 2 Stars
I was disappointed in this book. This book states that it is for ages 4 thru 8. I bought this for my 7 year old. This book is more for ages 2 thru 4. I have a 4 year old so I read it to him and it is now his book. This book is way too vague for an older child about who and where you should and should not be touched. Surprisingly it talks more about how it is ok to tell mom or dad or someone you love when you don't feel like giving them an innocent hug or innocent kiss. The following is from 2 pages in the book.
'Sometimes you don't like to be touched. Sometimes you don't want a hug or kiss, even from someone you love. Then you can say, "No, not right now, please!" Or you can show you don't want to be touched by not hugging or kissing back, or by pulling away.'
That was 2 pages from the book. That is mainly what it discusses. I wanted more about the wrong kind of touching. It only briefly scanned over that in the book. This book is not worth the money, but the book was cheap enough that I took it as a loss rather than paying for shipping to send it back. Like I said before though, I would recommend this book for much younger kids that can't understand much more than simple explanations, but because of the age range it gave and the son I originally bought it for I would have to give this book 2 stars. For my younger child if this book had said ages 2 thru 4 I would have given it 3 stars, but that is all. Still too vague for me.
Book Review: Great intro book or classroom tool.
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a great resource for ages 3-6/7 to cover aspects of touching including unwanted touching, what to do if you don't want to be touched, areas of your body that are private and not keeping secrets. The great thing about this book is that overall it has a positive message - that most of the time kids like to be touched. This allows the book to be reader friendly to the children without scaring them. More importantly, it does not use specific body part language, instead referencing the area covered by your bathing suit as your "private parts". This makes it great for classroom use where the children are being introduced to their bodies and terminology at different times based on their curiosities and maturity (as determined best by the parents). I strongly disagree with any notion that a young child needs to know specific terminology in order to understand that certain areas of their body are private. With that said, children who are already familiar with this topic and have begun to have more specific questions about body parts and function or can grasp more complex scenarios may need a more advanced book on this topic (or you can just talk to them more specifically about it)! Overall, great first book to introduce your child about child abuse safety and suitable unoffensive book for classroom use.Book Review: Great book for preschoolers
Summary: 4 Stars
I think every parent struggles with explaining appropriate vs inappropriate touching to preschoolers, and here is a short, simple book that does just that. It also has an introduction for parents and teachers that I personally found helpful. We have several of Ms. Spelman's books and I've found them to be a tremendous resource for explaining a variety of feelings - both good and bad - and teaching young children how to appropriately deal with those feelings. The one thing that bothered me about this particular book, however, is that it was written in the second person instead of first person like all the others. Perhaps there was a reason for this that is lost on me, but it seems to me that it would be more empowering to children to hear "my body belongs to me" rather than "your body belongs to you." Still, the book is excellent and age-appropriate for preschoolers and I definitely would recommend it to parents of young children.