Activity booklet

My name is Melissa King. I'm a mother, a television presenter and a garden expert.

Child sexual abuse is a really heavy topic. It’s a difficult topic for parents, and I think it's because no one ever wants to think about their child being harmed. We want to protect them, nurture them, and I think protect them from the realities of the world. And if all it takes is a series of simple conversations to get the message across to your child, to empower them to know what's right, what's wrong, to know when to speak up, to know when to find a trusted adult, then I think those conversations are something that every parent needs to have.

I think if you’re talking to your kids about something important like child sexual abuse, it's important to create a safe setting for them to feel like they can easily communicate with you. I know I've had some of the best conversations with my kids in a casual setting, an outdoor setting, something that takes them away from TV.

Gardening is a really great way to set the scene for those important conversations, because you're doing something fun with your kids, something that you can enjoy and they can enjoy too. But it also allows you to have conversations that you might feel are quite heavy, but it makes them feel like they're communicating with you in a safe setting, somewhere where they can feel like they can tell you what's going on in their lives.

One of the things that I love about gardening is that you're tending to your plants, and so over time, you need to water them, to fertilise them, to pick them. It provides an opportunity for you to have lots of different conversations with your child.

I think that the topic of child sexual abuse isn't just one conversation, it's one talk at a time, but over a long period. And there are some great gardening activities that you can do that are really fun for both adults, parents, carers, as well as for kids.

This is a great one. I call this a pizza pot, and all you need to do is get your hands on a pot like this. You fill it with potting mix, and then you divide the pot into little pizza segments with something like a simple bamboo stake or whatever you've got at home. And you plant those segments out with different herbs that you might use on a pizza. So, thyme, rosemary, basil, and I've even got some parsley in here for the gourmet pizza lovers and a bit of oregano. And the beauty of it too is that once these plants have grown, developed and then you're picking them, you can host a pizza party with your kids. So, I think by doing projects like this that you can enjoy together in a casual setting, it takes the scariness out of those conversations.

So, if you're looking to have a conversation with your child around child sexual abuse, but you just aren't sure how you should tackle it, there's a great campaign that's run by the National Office for Child Safety called ‘One Talk at a Time’.

There’s also a great website you can turn to - www.childsafety.gov.au - where you can find a downloadable activities booklet. So, it's filled with lots of great ideas, including these pizza pots, for how you can have those difficult conversations with your children.

Let's end child sexual abuse, one talk at a time.