Complete child protection exercises

The pamphlet How to Protect Your Children from Child Abuse: A Parent’s Guide is a critical resource created by Scouting America to help families identify, prevent, and respond to potential abuse and exploitation.

Finding the Pamphlet

This guide is bound into the front section of your rank requirements literature and is also available digitally through the official Scouting America Youth Protection portal.

Core Topics Covered in the Exercises

Completing the exercises with your parent or guardian involves reading through the material together and discussing practical safety scenarios:

• The Three R’s of Personal Safety:
  • Recognize: Identifying unsafe situations, predatory behaviors, boundary violations, or inappropriate physical, verbal, or digital attention.
  • Resist: Confidently saying “No,” setting firm personal physical boundaries, and leaving an uncomfortable or unsafe situation immediately.
  • Report: Immediately telling a trusted adult (parent, guardian, teacher, counselor, or Scoutmaster) about what happened, even if someone told you to keep it a secret.
• Physical Boundaries & Respect: Understanding that you have the absolute right to personal physical privacy and bodily autonomy.
• Digital Boundaries: Navigating social media, text messages, gaming chat rooms, and private messaging safely. Understanding the risks of sharing photos, passwords, or personal location details.
• Peer-to-Peer Safety: Recognizing bullying, hazing, cyberbullying, or harassment among peers, and knowing how to be an active upstander rather than a passive bystander.

Completing the Family Discussion

Set aside quiet, uninterrupted time with your parent or guardian to work through the discussion checklists and review the scenarios in the guide.