Why Children Don’t Tell: Vaishali Patel on Body Safety, Grooming & Breaking the Silence

Why children don’t tell when something has happened to them is one of the hardest questions any parent, teacher, or carer will ever have to sit with. In this episode of Don’t Get a Therapist Yet, I’m joined by Vaishali Patel, a podiatrist, mum of three, and child abuse survivor who has channelled twelve years of navigating the UK justice system into something remarkable: a children’s book called Say Something: Tell, Tell, Tell, designed to help young children build the vocabulary and confidence to speak up.

Why Children Don’t Tell, and Why Adults Need to Understand It

We start with the heart of the matter. Vish explains, from professional experience and her own history, why children stay silent, and why so many adults struggle to understand it. Fear, confusion, and a belief they won’t be believed all play a part, alongside the manipulation tactics perpetrators use to enforce secrecy. She’s honest about her own experience of disclosing as a child and not being believed, and how that silence can echo for years afterward.

Grooming, Manipulation & Cultural Silence

Vish walks through the emotional blackmail that keeps children quiet, from being told a situation is “our secret” to the shame that builds when a family or community doesn’t have the language to discuss abuse openly. She speaks candidly about how culture, religion, and gender all shape the weight of that shame, and why boys in particular carry a silence that rarely gets voiced.

Teaching Body Safety Through Story

At the centre of the conversation is the book itself. Vish describes creating a gender-neutral character named Emmy alongside a wise golden owl, chosen because of its ability to turn its head and stay alert to danger, and explains how the story gives children a safe, low-pressure way to talk about boundaries and body safety without needing to name their own experience directly. She also shares the thinking behind the book’s “magic square” pages, left blank on purpose so a child can draw, write, or express whatever they need to.

Listening as the First Act of Protection

One of the most powerful parts of this conversation is Vish’s message to adults: the first time a child opens up is a moment of trust, and how it’s handled shapes whether they’ll ever come back to try again. We talk about why listening matters more than reacting, and how belief, more than anything else, is what allows a child to keep speaking.

Breaking Generational Silence

Vish also opens up about the elderly people in her own community who have told her, for the first time in their lives, about abuse they experienced decades ago. Her hope is that normalising this conversation now, the way society has gradually normalised discussing other once-taboo health topics, will reduce the silence carried across generations and help prevent it happening to the next one.

This conversation is for parents, teachers, grandparents, and anyone who spends time around children. It’s a reminder that protecting a child starts long before anything goes wrong, in the everyday conversations that let a child know they’ll always be believed.

Say Something: Tell, Tell, Tell is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1837094586

🌐 Learn more: https://wendycastelino.com

📚 Get Vish’s book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1837094586