An activity for home or classroom. You need: this page's instructions, paper, and something to draw with. It works for one child at bedtime or forty children in a classroom.
The activity
- Trace your hand on the paper, fingers spread wide.
- The thumb is you. Write your name on it, and one thing you're good at. (This matters — the hand starts with a strong child, not a scared one.)
- On three fingers, write your three safe adults — grown-ups you could tell anything. Ask: could I tell this person about a bad secret? Would they listen? Try to pick people from more than one place — home, school, family — so there's always someone near.
- On the last finger, write 116 — the free phone number that works day and night, from any phone, when a child needs help.
- Decorate the hand so it's yours. Colours, patterns, a border — take your time.
Practise the sentence
With the hand finished, practise saying the telling sentence out loud, once for each safe adult on your fingers:
"I have something important to tell you, and I need you to listen."
Saying it out loud when everything is fine makes it a hundred times easier to say on a day when it isn't. That's the whole trick of this activity.
For the grown-up helping
- Let children choose their own adults — and notice, without commenting in front of others, if a child struggles to name three. That quiet struggle is information worth gently following up.
- If a child names you, say thank you, and mean it. Then make sure you'd deserve it: read Receiving a Disclosure.
- Hang the hands somewhere children can see them. A wall of strong hands is a promise the whole room has made together.