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    Talking to Your Kids About Tough Subjects

    By | Parenting – Mon, Nov 21, 2011 5:03 PM EST

    Parents.com blogger and mom, Allison Winn Scotch, discusses how she's using the Penn State scandal to talk to her kids about tough topics.

    By Allison Winn Scotch

    Tough subject matter today. But important subject matter today too.

    If there is any positive to be found in the Penn State atrocities -- which I blogged about last week -- it's that it made me realize that I need to talk to my kids about the possibility of a stranger violating them. To be honest, it hadn't occurred to me. Sure, I'd read and heard of horror stories of molestation, etc., but it hadn't really hit home that this could happen virtually anywhere (even though I understand that it can) and that it could happen to my own kids. And this weekend, as DC and I were looking online for a new sports league for him, it dawned on me that I'd be sending him out into the arms of strangers, just as the parents had done at Sandusky's foundation…and that, as delicate as the subject may be, I needed to raise it with my kids.

    Now, I'm a mom who is very comfortable talking about anatomy and about "privates." My kids use the right names for things, they are always welcome to ask me questions, and I try my best to answer everything that I can in an age-appropriate way. I hope to raise kids who love their bodies and who have proper ownership of them. And I believe that this starts with having an open (again, age-appropriate) dialogue about their bodies. But, that didn't mean that this was an easy subject to broach.

    But I did. It wasn't a lengthy discussion, and it didn't scare them, but it was enough to let them know that "no one should ever touch their private areas whom they didn't want touching it." (I'm paraphrasing but it was along those lines.) And that if someone ever did, no matter what that person told them, they should come to their daddy or me, and we would help and support and love them.

    Look, it's entirely unpleasant to even consider these things. And again, I guess I'd been walking around in my bubble, never really considering that it can hit home. But the truth is that these are discussions worth having. They open up the lines of communication between you and your kids, and it also may help them understand how to protect themselves in the future. So I'm glad that I did. And I hope that we continue to discuss this as they get older -- it feels to me that information gives them power…as long as this information is age-appropriate. So if there is any silver lining to be found in the horror of what happened at Penn State, perhaps it is that parents will find ways to arm their kids with information (and power) and prevent this from happening in the future.

    What about you? Has this allowed you to open up a dialogue with your own children?

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    This article first appeared on Parents.com.