My Daughter Wasn't a Monster. She Was a Victim Who Didn't Have the Words.
I got a phone call from another mother that made me pull over and throw up on the side of the road. She said my daughter did something to her daughter at a playdate. My daughter is 6.
She makes friendship bracelets for everyone in her class and delivers them in a ziplock bag with their name spelled wrong on the front. She cries when butterflies die. That's my daughter.
The call said my daughter took another girl into a closet and pulled down her pants and touched her. I need you to sit with that sentence, because I've carried it for two months — and it's the reason I'm writing this. My daughter wasn't being a predator. She's 6. She doesn't know what a predator is. But she did something to another child that should never happen.
I brought her home. I sat her on her bed. I didn't yell, even though I wanted to. I said, "Baby, what happened at Sophie's house today?" She looked at me confused. Not guilty. Not scared. Confused. She said: "We were playing the game."
"What is the game?" "The game you play with someone. Where you go in the closet and pull down your pants and look at each other. And touch." My whole body went cold. "Where did you learn that game?" She shrugged. "Who taught you?" She looked at the floor. "I don't know how to say it."
My 6-year-old had been molested by someone, and she couldn't tell me who, or where, or what they did. Because I never gave her the words. She didn't even know it was wrong. The person who did it called it a game — so she learned it as a game, and played it with Sophie the way kids play every game they learn. You learn it. You teach it to your friend. That's what kids do.
I had taught her "don't let anyone touch you" and "tell mommy if something feels weird." Someone did touch her. And it didn't feel weird — because he made it feel like a game. It felt fun. Secret. Special. "Tell mommy if it feels weird" doesn't work when it doesn't feel weird.
We went to a therapist. My daughter couldn't describe it there either. She pointed. She used her hands. She said "the game" over and over. She couldn't name body parts. She couldn't name what was done. She couldn't name who did it.
A victim who couldn't name her abuser, because nobody gave her the words for her own body. And the child doing it to other kids, because she thought it was a game and nobody told her it wasn't. Victim and perpetrator — at the same time. Because of the same missing words.
The therapist recommended body safety books. I found Safe Kids Path at 2 a.m., scrolling, unable to sleep. I ordered them that night. When they arrived, I read them to her. She didn't laugh. She went still — the way you listen when someone is finally explaining something you've been trying to understand for a long time. At the end she looked at me and said:
He. She said he — the first time she'd ever used a word for the person who did this. "Who, baby? Who showed you?"
Coach Ryan. Soccer. The equipment room. "Don't tell or you can't play soccer." She loves soccer more than anything on earth — so she didn't tell. She played the game with another child instead.
The books gave her the words to name him. Four sentences. Specific enough to act on. I called the police that night. Not the background check — he passed it. Not me watching from the sideline — I was right there. Four sentences from a 6-year-old who learned the words from a bedtime story three weeks earlier. That's what broke it open.
Then, two weeks ago, it happened again — and everything was different.
A boy in her class told her to come to the bathroom, he'd show her something, and she couldn't tell anyone. Same words. Same pattern. "Come with me. I'll show you. Don't tell."
She told her teacher. She told me at dinner, between bites of spaghetti: "Mom, a boy said come to the bathroom and don't tell. I said no and told Mrs. Davis." Then: "Can I have more garlic bread?"
Two months ago she was teaching these games to other kids, because she thought that's what you do with games. Two weeks ago she stopped a boy from starting one — with five words from a bedtime story. Two months ago she was the problem. Two weeks ago she was the solution. The difference was five phrases from a set of kids' books.
The three books are those five phrases.
Plus the feelings flipbook that makes it stick. Whether your daughter is the child who needs to say no, the child who needs to report, or the child who was taught a "game" and needs to know it wasn't one — the same books protect all three.
Your daughter might be Sophie. Or the child in the closet. Or both.
Not because she's bad. Because she's learning things right now — from older kids, from adults, from screens, from places she goes without you. Does she know which "games" aren't games? Does she have the words to tell you what someone taught her? Or will she teach it to a friend at a playdate, because she thinks it's just a game?
Parents keep telling us the same thing
The Complete Body Safety System
- All 3 body-safety books — the words, in three parts
- Parent discussion guide + body anatomy chart
- The feelings flipbook available in your cart