Deeply shaken and disturbed with the news about child abuse that I come across these days with alarming regularity through newspapers, television, personal interactions, etc., I decided to have a small talk with A Jr in this regard. I’d been meaning to bring this thing up with him for a while. Almost 7 and half years old now, I felt it was time he knew about it.

I knew the subject was a little tricky for me to broach and also somewhat complicated for him to process completely. I needed some aid to make it a bit easier. Fortunately, someone forwarded a video to me a few days ago about good touch and bad touch.

I sat him down with me, made him feel matured and important and then proceeded to show him the video. He sat through it quietly, listening attentively and trying to absorb as much as he can. A couple of times during the video he looked up at me questioningly but didn’t say anything.

When it was over, the first thing he said was, ‘Mamma, I thought you were showing me some song on your phone! But it was this! Ok.’. I simply smiled at him and asked if he understood what was shown in it and was there anything to learn from it. To my relief, he got it bang on and explained everything to me, just the way I had expected him to.

I felt better that at least I made him aware of the fact that there are monsters roaming around everywhere in our society and we can never be careful enough. If someone misbehaves with him there’s no way he should be ashamed of it and should quickly raise an alarm, irrespective of who the person is.

The presence of Angel in his life has been a boon to me so far and there are things that I don’t normally have to address him about. Still, I went a step further and reinforced on him the need to be respectful to all girls and be there for anyone who needs his assistance. Even if they are his friends and they fight a lot, he should behave nicely with them.

He seems to have registered it all, as of now. Internet, peer pressure, fashion and the need to belong may affect his mindset later on and there’s precious little I will be able to do that time. This is the age where we can instil family values and teach the importance of morals to our children. They need to know that being a victim of abuse or inflicting it on anyone is not only wrong but also punishable by law.