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4.4 Reason and verbal intervention
You can adopt different approaches when you talk with children about sexual abuse . You can speak to the child in your care about what children in general have experienced and how they reacted . Or you can speak directly or less directly about what happened to the child in your care .
4.4.1 Naming feelings
Many abused children seem to have little awareness of how to distinguish their feelings .
They may also not be aware whether they are cold or warm , hungry or full , tired or not ( their somatic state ).
They may feel overwhelmed by emotions ( excited , upset , frustrated , numb ) but be unable to judge whether they are hurt , disappointed or frustrated , for example . To help a child become more aware of its feelings , try looking together at pictures of faces that express different feelings , or pictures of different situations . Work with the child to distinguish the intensity of feeling ( on a scale of 0-10 for example ).
Workshop exercise . Role play – What am I feeling ?
ROLE PLAY EXERCISE
Aim . To get in touch with feelings , and experience how to work with feelings . Duration . 10 minutes . Materials . A box or basket . Put slips of paper in the basket with a feeling written on each . Instructions :
• Form pairs or a group . One participant acts a feeling ; the others guess what the feeling is .
• The actor picks a note from a basket . ( Prepare by trying to feel the feeling inside you .)
• Act the feeling . You cannot use language , but you can use your whole body .
• The other participants guess the feeling .
• Discuss afterwards what the actor did to demonstrate the feeling , and how the other participants recognised it . You can have this discussion with children too .
HELP AND ACTION