🔐 Why Secrets Don’t Protect Children — They Protect Predators

Image credit: @5uffragette

For decades, child safeguarding experts have warned:

Teaching children to keep secrets from their parents is unsafe.

And yet, some systems and adults are now encouraging secrecy around key parts of a child’s identity—without parental knowledge.

Let’s be clear: That is not safeguarding. That is a red flag!

🧠 Predators Use Secrets to Groom Children

• “Don’t tell your parents.”
• “They wouldn’t understand.”
• “This is just between us.”

These are not the words of someone protecting a child. These are the words of someone isolating them.

Secrecy is how abuse begins.

👨‍👩‍👧 Safe Parents Are Not the Problem

Most parents are the first and best line of defense in a child’s life.
They are caregivers, protectors, and advocates.

When we bypass them without cause, we’re not protecting children—we’re weakening their safety net.

You may disagree with a parent’s stance on gender identity.
That’s your right.
But it’s also a fact that children are not adults.

And until they are, parents have the sacred, legal, and moral responsibility to guide them—especially when it comes to decisions about their bodies, minds, and long-term well-being.

Once a child turns 18, they can make their own choices, live in their truth, and define who they are—on their own terms-in ways that do not trespass upon, harm, and infringe upon the rights and boundaries of others. That’s adulthood.

But teaching children to:

• Hide from their parents
• Ignore bodily boundaries
• Dismiss consent
• Accept adult influence over private choices
• And keep secrets about their identity…

…isn’t progressive.

It’s dangerous.

It mimics the exact tactics that predators use to isolate, manipulate, and groom.

Children should be taught to recognize coercion, not submit to it.
To understand consent, not bypass it.
To trust safe adults, not be told to keep secrets from them.

No matter the issue—gender, relationships, or anything else—when we teach kids that secrecy and adult interference are okay, we’re laying the groundwork for harm.

Truth doesn’t require silence.
Love doesn’t demand hiding.
And safety never grows from secrecy.

⚖️ Yes, There Are Exceptions—Handled By Professionals

If a child is in real danger at home, the answer isn’t secrecy.

It’s:

• Court oversight
• CPS intervention
• Licensed professionals following established legal protocols

Not whispered conversations behind a parent’s back. Not systems that hide things from the very people responsible for that child’s well-being.

🛡️ True Safeguarding Means:

✅ Supporting children with honesty
✅ Empowering families, not dividing them
✅ Teaching children how to spot unsafe behavior
✅ Making it crystal clear that no safe adult ever asks a child to keep secrets

🔥 Because the truth is this:

Secrets protect predators—not children.

Let’s raise children who know that truth belongs in the light.
Let’s support parents and educators who work together to keep kids safe, loved, and seen.

Predators Don’t Start With Violence—They Start With ‘Innocence’

Why Forcing Children to Lie About Identity is Harmful