UMass Amherst Alumni Association

Jill Starishevsky ’91 has been a prosecutor of child abuse and sex crimes in New York City since 1997. In 2009, she released her first children’s book, My Body Belongs to Me, which guides parents in talking to their young children about the topic of sexual abuse and prevention. In this interview, Starishevsky shares some of her experiences as a legal defender of children, writer, and mother.

How did your experiences in the legal system lead you to write this book?
I knew from my experiences as a prosecutor that kids don’t necessarily tell when they’re being abused and therefore it can continue and escalate. One case in particular drove this home for me. A nine year old girl, who had been sexually abused by her stepfather from the age of six to nine, saw an episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show about parents who physically abused their kids. At the end, the message was if you are being hurt by a parent, go to school and tell your teacher.

So after three years of being raped weekly by her stepfather, the next day she went to school and told her teacher. The police, Child Protective Services, and my office were called in; the stepfather was removed from the home, tried, and is now in prison for a long time. This was before I had children of my own and I thought to myself, all it took was the message to ‘tell someone’ to end this girl’s nightmare.

Why did you choose the format of a children’s book to talk about sex abuse?
It was out of necessity. When my daughter was three, I knew that I had to have the conversation with her that no one is allowed to touch you and to tell someone if it happens. But I didn’t know what to say and I didn’t know how to approach it, which was embarrassing since this is my field.

I went to the library and bookstore looking for books on how to talk to your children about sex abuse and found long clinical books that really didn’t address what I was looking for. I asked my pediatrician, who gave me some guidance, but said that it’s hard to find teaching or support material for parents on this topic because its taboo and nobody wants to talk about it.

That’s when I started to think about how to tell small children that their body has private parts; that no one is allowed to touch those parts and most importantly if somebody does touch you, to tell a parent or teacher and to not keep it a secret.

How did you get My Body Belongs to Me published?
Let me give you a little bit of context— the book is written as a short poem that you can read with a child and has lots of children-friendly pictures. There is a line where the child is touched in a way that makes her feel uncomfortable and she immediately tells her parents, who are very proud of her.

When I approached some big publishers, they were interested in the idea, but wanted me to remove the line where the child is touched because they thought parents wouldn’t actually buy a book where a child is sexually abused. They preferred that I only alluded to it.

I disagreed and thought that it was a huge disservice to parents and kids if this wasn’t included. After some arguing back and forth, the publisher said they wouldn’t print the book with that line included so I published it myself.

What has been the response to your book?
The book launch was in 2010 and the Associated Press wrote a piece on how a little prosecutor doesn’t bow down to the major publishing companies. As a result of that article, I was contacted by the Oprah Winfrey Show and appeared on an episode in April. A lot of the feedback that I’ve received is that the book is done in a way that opens the subject up so parents can inject what they want to discuss in a way that’s not scary.

With child safety so prevalent on everyone’s mind, what advice would you give parents?

1. Prevention education is critical. The statistics are that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused in this country before the age of 18. We can’t be with our kids at all times, but we can help them understand boundaries and to feel comfortable telling an adult if something bad happens.
2. Have this conversation early and often. A big problem is that people don’t know when you’re supposed to have this conversation with children. I will hear parents say they haven’t talked to their child yet because their son or daughter is only nine years old. That’s six years too late! My book is intended for three to eight year-olds.
3. Don’t be afraid that you’re going to say the wrong thing or that you’re going to scare your child. We teach children lots of safety rules, like when to cross the street or how to call 911, and they aren’t scared afterwards.
4. Encourage kids not to keep secrets. Around Valentine’s Day, my daughter’s school was having the kids make cards for their parents and the teacher innocently said that it was a secret. After reading the book with me many times, my daughter said that we don’t keep secrets in our family—can we make it a surprise instead? Don’t assume that if something bad were to happen that your kids would run and tell you. In my experience as a prosecutor, most children don’t tell simply because they are told to keep it a secret.
5. Educating about stranger danger is not enough. The problem is that 93% of child sexual abuse happens at the hands of somebody who is known to the child and in the family’s inner circle.
6. Be prepared to respond in a calm supportive way. If your child does disclose that he or she has been touched inappropriately, how you respond can determine whether or not that child is going to talk about it again. I tell parents to go in the next room and vent but whatever you do don’t let your children see you upset. What I’ve learned over the years is that children are smart and will tell disclosures in piecemeal. They’ll first test the waters with a few details.  If they get a bad reaction then they won’t continue to disclose because they want everything to be normal and to not upset their parents.

Are there additional resources for parents that you’d recommend?
A lot of organizations go into schools and have puppet shows or other various presentations that communicate the same message. Organizations like Stop the Silence, Darkness to Light and Stop It Now also have some great information on their websites. A great book for parents is Predators and Child Molesters by Robin Sax. And people can also find their local child advocacy center by inputting their zip code at the National Children’s Alliance site.

For more information on Jill Starishevsky’s book, My Body Belongs to Me, visit http://www.mybodybelongstome.com.