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I work at a daycare. I'm not supposed to tell you this. Not because it's against any rule. Because it's the kind of thing that makes people uncomfortable. The kind of thing other parents don't want to hear from the person watching their kids. But I have a four-year-old daughter at home, and what I've seen in three years of working with children changed how I parent forever. I'll keep this simple: I've seen things. Not from adults. Not from staff. From other kids. Children act out what they've been exposed to. That's not an opinion. That's child development. A child who has seen or experienced inappropriate things will often reenact them with other children. In play. During nap time. In the bathroom. In the little corners of rooms where they think no one is watching. Most of the time, the child doing it doesn't even understand what they're doing. They're four, five, six years old. They're mimicking. And the children on the receiving end? They almost never tell. You know why? Because they don't have the words. They don't know that what happened was wrong. They don't know they're allowed to say no. They don't know they're supposed to tell a grown-up. So they just... absorb it. And move on. And nobody knows. Do you know how many times I've watched a child freeze? Not cry. Not scream. Just freeze. Because they didn't have a single word for what was happening to them. I've lost count. When I had my daughter, I swore I would not let her be one of those kids. Not because the world is more dangerous than it used to be. But because I'd seen, with my own eyes, how fast something can happen in a room full of supervised children when one of them has been exposed to something they shouldn't have been. The problem was I didn't know how to teach her. I know what the problem looks like. I see it every week. But knowing the problem and knowing how to arm a four-year-old against it are two completely different things. I tried talking to her. I'd get about two sentences in and she'd ask me if she could have a snack. She's four. She has the attention span of a four-year-old. A coworker told me about Safe Kids Path. Three books that teach body safety through rhyming stories. She said her niece loved them so much she asked to read them every night. I was skeptical. I've seen a lot of "solutions" in this space. Coloring books. Workbooks. Animated videos that go right over kids' heads. Most of them are made for parents to feel like they did something, not for children to actually learn something. But I ordered them. The first night I read one to my daughter, she laughed. Actually laughed. At a body safety book. She asked me to read it again. By the second week, she was finishing the rhymes before I could. "My body belongs to ME!" she'd yell, like it was the funniest punchline in the world. By the third week, she told me — completely unprompted, in the middle of putting on her shoes — "Mommy, if someone tries to touch my private parts, that's not okay and I tell my Safety Team." I sat on the floor of our hallway and cried. Because I'd spent three years watching children who didn't have those words. And now mine did. She didn't learn them from a lecture. She didn't learn them from an awkward conversation I fumbled through. She learned them from silly bedtime stories she begs me to read. I bought a set for every parent at our daycare last Christmas. Didn't explain why. Just wrapped them up with a note that said "Read these to your kids. Trust me." A few parents texted me to say thanks. One mom told me her son used the words at a family gathering two weeks later. I'm telling you this because I see the other side. I see what happens when kids don't have the language. And I see what happens when they do. The difference isn't parenting style or income or education or luck. The difference is whether someone gave them the words before they needed them. Give them the words. The books are called Safe Kids Path. Your child will think they're bedtime stories. You'll know they're armor.