Written by Janine Appleby / Early childhood teacher with over 20 years' experience & Rebecca Marshall / Artist, cowriter and illustrator
Body Safety
If you are an early childhood educator responsible for choosing body safety resources for your setting, you already know the stakes.
This is not about what type of coloured pencils go in the art corner. A body safety resource will shape how the children in your care understand their own bodies, their rights, and what to do if something feels wrong. It will be in the hands of educators who may feel uncertain about how to use it. It will go home with families who may never have had this conversation themselves.
Choosing well matters.
There is no shortage of resources available, books, programs, posters, lesson plans, videos. Some are excellent. Some are well-intentioned but developmentally misaligned. Some are so clinical they create the very discomfort they are trying to resolve.
Here is what I look for. These are the criteria that shaped The Hoot Hoot Way and the Together Wood Forest. Questions I would ask of any resource before bringing it into a setting with young children.
1. Is it age-appropriate in language and concept?
Body safety education for three- to six-year-olds needs to work within what children at this stage can actually hold.
That means concrete, specific language rather than abstract concepts. Young children understand "your body belongs to you" before they understand "bodily autonomy." They understand "private parts" before "consent." They understand "a feeling in your body that something is wrong" before "instinct."
The best resources use simple, accurate language and introduce one concept at a time rather than front-loading everything into a single session. Look for resources that build gradually from developing a sense of belonging, body awareness, to safe and unsafe adults and speaking up.
2. Does it address the adults as well as the children?
Most body safety resources speak only to children. This is understandable since children are the intended audience, but it misses something important.
The adults in a child's environment are the first line of protection. An educator who understands what body safety education is trying to do, who has language to extend the conversation beyond the resource itself, and who knows what to do if a child discloses, multiplies the effectiveness of any resource enormously.
Look for resources that include educator guidance. Not just lesson plans or activity prompts, but genuine support for the human being facilitating the conversation. What to say before you begin. What to do if a child reacts unexpectedly. How to use the language outside the formal session. What to do if a child tells you something that concerns you.
The best resources take educators seriously as professionals and partners, not just delivery mechanisms.
3. Does it make children feel capable, not frightened?
There is a meaningful difference between a resource that equips children and one that alarms them.
Fear-based body safety education can produce short-term compliance but long-term anxiety. Children who are frightened by body safety content may become hypervigilant, may develop confusing associations between their bodies and danger, or may shut down rather than speak up.
Equipping children looks different. It gives them language and concepts in a context of warmth and safety. It tells them what to do, not just what to fear. It presents trusted adults as genuinely trustworthy, adults that are present, listening, and on their side.
A child who has been through good body safety education should feel clearer, calmer, confident and more capable than before. Not scared. Strong.
4. Does it support ongoing conversation rather than a one-off lesson?
Body safety is not a subject you teach once in term two and consider covered.
Children need to encounter these concepts repeatedly, in different contexts, at different developmental moments. The child who hears about body safety in a picture book at three will understand something different about it at five. The concept of speaking up to a trusted adult means something different the week after a friendship conflict than it does in a calm moment during morning circle.
Look for resources that are designed to be returned to. That have enough layers in the story, the illustrations, and the discussion prompts that yield something new each time. That give educators the language to continue the conversation naturally across the day and across the year.
A one-and-done body safety program is not really a program. It is a gesture.
5. Does it fit into your existing environment without requiring everything to stop?
Educators are busy. Directors are busy. Any resource that requires an entire pedagogical restructure to implement will be set aside, however good its intentions.
The most effective body safety resources are designed to sit naturally within circle time, read-aloud sessions, movement activities, art and making. They extend existing practice rather than replacing it. They give educators entry points that work within five minutes of morning circle and also work as the foundation of a deeper unit of work.
If a resource requires two days of professional development before anyone can open it, question whether it was designed for children or for the organisation selling it.
6. Does it go home?
The most powerful body safety education happens at both school and at home, with educators and with families.
A child who hears the same concepts at home and at kinder develops a richer, more confident understanding than a child who encounters them only in one context. Families who are supported to continue the conversation at home, with the same language, the same characters, the same touchstones will extend the reach of the program without any additional educator effort.
Look for resources that are designed to travel. A take-home component, a family guide, a book that goes into the school bag. The conversation that starts in your room and continues over dinner is doing exactly what it should.
A note on what we built
Every criterion on this list shaped the decisions we made in creating The Hoot Hoot Way.
The language is age-appropriate and the educator guide is written to support the person facilitating the conversation, not just describe the activities. The book itself is designed to go home, to be read again, to give families the same entry point it gives educators.
And it includes a page called Educators Should Never, a visible commitment to the standards every child deserves from every adult in their care. Not because we assume educators need to be told. But because children deserve to see it written down.
If you are looking for a body safety resource that meets these criteria and is warm, developmentally grounded, genuinely useful for educators and families, and designed to be returned to across a child's early years — The Hoot Hoot Way is available here.
Share this post with your director. Forward it to a colleague who is going through the same decision. The right resource is out there, and it is worth taking the time to find it.
Rebecca Marshall is the co-writer and illustrator of The Hoot Hoot Way and co-creator of The Together Wood Forest program, developed in collaboration with early childhood expert Janine Appleby. The Hoot Hoot Way is in use in early childhood settings and homes across Australia.