Rabbit's Safe Place

Having spent much of this week on safeguarding/child protection, I felt thankful to be teaching in nursery all day yesterday as a change of gear. I took Rabbit in to meet the children. Rabbit, in my opinion, is an amazing puppet who lives in a gorgeous lettuce along with his network including Butterfly, Ladybird and Caterpillar. It looks so life-like, the children were completely entranced. We talked about how Rabbit retracts into his safe place when feels his Early Warning Signs. We talked about Rabbit's network. We tried to help Rabbit to feel safe at nursery, being mindful it was new for him. Suddenly, a small child who is very quiet shouted out "I feel safe!" and then lots of others piped up "Yes, me too! I feel safe too!" We talked about feeling safe at nursery. I asked where else the children felt safe? "I feel safe in my bed" said one little girl. "I feel safe playing with my friends," said another child.

All this was from 3 year olds, able to clearly articulate where they feel safe. While many professionals I meet through inter-agency working will actively promote the use of PBs with children, many still think children need to be older (7-8 year and up) to understand PBs. This example illustrates how using suitable resources can facilitate PB work with much younger children.

There is a lovely book about Rabbit by Jenny Tarry available on another page of the forum (thanks to Jenny for sharing it):

www.pbpeople.org.uk/protective-behaviour...-an-overgrown-garden

I have mentioned PBs for early years on the forum before, and can highly recommend this Rabbit puppet as a staple resource for practitioners introducing very young children to PBs.

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/The-Puppet-Company-Ne...&hash=item3cd1adb89b

I took in a carrot for them to feed to Rabbit too:

www.amazon.com/Under-The-Nile-Carrot-Toy/dp/B000LFQ3GY

I think an activity like this could even be successful with some 2 year olds and up to Key Stage One.

I wonder if anyone else has used the puppet (or others) in a fun, interactive way with young children?

Hi Judith,
Feel so chuffed that you and the children had such a fab time exploring feeling safe using the 'Rabbit in the lettuce' puppet. I have used this many times with people of all ages - it's amazing how many 'grown ups' really connect with him/her and love the fact that the leaves hide potential network buddies.
Jenny took the photos of Rabbit having fun on her farm and has kindly let us share this with the PB People community - thank you once again Jenny.

Good work Judith
I get very frustrated with people challenging the notion that many children are too young (or too 'disabled')to understand PBs and the concepts of feeling safe. If we just give it a go we can be endlessly surprised. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And if I doesn't 'click' with some we can try something else and keep persisting and reviewing networks to find new ideas to try.

This is a fantastic resource to use with people of any age - I used it recently in a Foundation Level course and all the trainees really engaged and although they claimed not to like doing role play they all came up with voices for their creature and all joined in with the story telling. I am very grateful to Jenny for coming up with the story and pictures and for sharing them with us.

Upon request from one of its greatest fans, I took the rabbit puppet into a setting recently to work with a child. Later, I used it with another small group of children in the same setting, starting out with Rabbit nestled snugly in the lettuce before gently coaxing it out to meet the children.

The children seemed to enjoy Rabbit's grand entrance, watching the puppet tentatively leaving the security of the lettuce to slowly come out and meet them. As this happened, I quietly asked the children to consider where Rabbit perhaps feels safest.

One child looked at the lettuce with a serious expression, and then at me, declaring "Walls is safe. Walls. Walls from bricks.....lettuce isn't safe! Anyone can just squash it and get him!"

This comment reflected elements of that child's home experience, one step removed. The example, I think, serves as a great reminder of how imperative it is to really listen skillfully to children, and try to understand what they might be trying to communicate -- not always as transparent as it may at first seem.

Judith