Ensuring children always feel listened to
Research from the NSPCC’s Let Children Know You’re Listening1 project has shown that adults don’t always recognize, understand, or react appropriately when a child or young person starts to tell them about experiences of abuse.
This can mean that the child doesn’t get the support they need. Many children will delay telling someone about their situation. And when they do choose to confide in an adult, they are not always comfortable in expressing themselves verbally.
When these subtle attempts to talk about abuse happen, it’s important that adults know how to spot that something isn’t right and make the child feel listened to in that moment.