How Does a Child Decide Who Is Safe?

I spend one day a week with my granddaughter. At four years old, she talks constantly. She tells me about games she has played, things she has noticed, arguments she has had, and ideas that seem to arrive in her head faster than she can explain them. Some of her stories are important. Some are completely random. Most of them arrive whether I am ready for them or not.

During my conversation with Heena Sinha Cheung, I found myself thinking about those conversations. Not because my granddaughter was telling me anything particularly serious, but because Heena kept returning to the importance of children feeling heard. It made me wonder whether children are learning something from those everyday conversations that we often overlook.

We tend to think communication becomes important when something important needs to be communicated. We focus on the big conversations. We worry about whether a child would tell us if something was wrong, whether they would come to us if they were frightened, hurt, or confused. Yet perhaps those moments are not where trust begins. Perhaps trust is built much earlier, in all the ordinary conversations that seem to have no particular significance at all.

Trust Is Built Before It Is Needed

One of the ideas Heena shared was the concept of a safe circle. She encourages children to identify trusted adults they can turn to when they need help, advice, support, or simply someone to listen. It is a practical exercise, but I found myself thinking about what sits underneath it.

Before a child reaches out to a trusted adult, they first have to believe that trusted adults exist. They have to believe that someone will listen, that they will be taken seriously, and that speaking up will not make things worse.

That sounds obvious, but I am not sure it always is.

During the conversation, Heena spoke about why many children never disclose abuse. Some fear they will be blamed. Some fear they will not be believed. Some simply do not have the words to describe what is happening. Others have learned from watching adults around them that difficult topics are not welcome. Listening to her, I was reminded of my own sister, who did not tell anyone about her abuse until she was an adult. Years passed before she felt able to speak about what had happened.

I think many of us find that difficult to understand because we assume that if something serious was happening, a child would tell someone. We assume that love is enough. We assume that children know they can come to us.

The reality is more complicated than that.

Children can be deeply loved and still not know how to speak. They can be surrounded by caring adults and still feel unsure about what will happen if they tell the truth. That is not necessarily because anyone has failed them. Sometimes it is because trust is built slowly, and confidence in our own voice develops over years rather than moments.

The Things We Prefer Not To Think About

Heena also spoke about something I suspect many of us recognise in ourselves. She talked about how parents often begin with denial when confronted with the realities of child abuse. Not because they do not care, but because they care deeply.

Most of us want to believe that these things happen somewhere else. We want to believe they belong to another family, another neighbourhood, or another community. There is something very human about wanting painful realities to remain at a distance.

The difficulty is that keeping uncomfortable truths at a distance can also keep important conversations at a distance.

Perhaps that is why this conversation felt so important to me. It was not really a conversation about abuse. It was a conversation about listening. It was a conversation about creating environments where children know that their thoughts, questions, fears, and concerns are welcome long before they ever need help.

Brew the Change: Building a Safe Circle

This week’s Brew the Change challenge is to help a child identify their safe circle.

Sit down with a child in your life and talk about five trusted adults they could turn to if they ever felt worried, frightened, uncomfortable, confused, or simply needed someone to listen. Ask them who they would talk to if something happened at school. Ask who they would call if they felt unsafe. Help them think about the people in their life who make them feel supported and understood.

It is a simple conversation, but simple conversations often carry more weight than we realise. A child who knows where they can turn is less likely to feel alone when life becomes difficult.

The Stories That Keep Coming

As I finished my conversation with Heena, I found myself thinking once again about my granddaughter and all the stories she tells me every week. Most of them seem small. Most of them will probably be forgotten by tomorrow.

But perhaps that is not really the point.

Perhaps the point is that she keeps telling them.

And perhaps the question for all of us is not whether children know they can talk, but whether we are giving them enough reasons to believe we will listen.

Watch the episode on YouTube