Teaching Your Children About Strangers
June 22, 2009 by Kandice Martinez
Filed under Super Informed
I witnessed something this past Saturday while out enjoying the annual town wide garage sale that got me to thinking about the eventuality that I will have to teach my children about strangers.Before I get to the stranger part though, I’m going to indulge in little bit of a rant first.We came to a house with a garage sale on a fairly busy street (made busier by the fact that so many people where out enjoying the sales) and in front of the house was a little boy not more than 4 playing on his scooter, trying to make it go up and over a homemade ramp.And when I say homemade, I mean dangerously rickety and unstable. Strike 1, this was no place for a small child to be playing, I kept watching him out of the corner of my eye waiting for him to fall off the ramp and get clipped by a passing car, not to mention the ramp alone was just plain dangerous.At least he was wearing a helmet, however, on the front of said helmet in big letters was his name which for me was strike # 2 when it became apparent how friendly this little boy was.Strike # 3 occurred when we went across the street to get back in the car.This little boy followed us over and asked if he could see my car. Not once had this kid’s mom told him to be careful, or to get off the road or expressed any concern over the fact that he followed us across the street without looking to see if any cars were coming.I said sure to his request since it seems that his Mom is comfortable with this situation, and as I’m opening my door he pushes in front of me and gets in the car.I was stunned, this cute little boy of 4 with his name in big letters on his helmet has just hopped into a strangers car like it was the most normal thing in the world.Finally at this point his Mom calls him back, but can’t be bothered to come and get him just shouts from across the road that it’s time to come back.I hope to god that after we drove away she took the time to explain that it’s not okay to play in the street, cross the street without a grown up and that it’s definitely not okay to hop into strangers cars.
It was pretty scary to think that all someone had to do was say” hey there Timmy (because his name is on his helmet) want to come see my neat car?” and little Timmy would just climb right in. There were so many obvious parenting dont’s in the space of 10 minutes that I wasn’t sure which part I wanted to blog about. But when that little kid hopped in my car the first words to pop in my head were “Stranger Danger” and I got to wondering if this concept, one that was so prevalent when I was child,was still taught anymore and was it even valid in the world that we live in today vs. the world 30 years ago? Googling Stranger Danger brings up all kinds of different results and it seems there are some people who still believe in the concept, but the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children had a great press release on this subject which you can read in full Here , as well as lots of links and publications with basic commonsense info on child safety on their website.
From www.missingkids.com:
“Stranger danger” – the phrase is so pervasive in our culture that it has become part of the lexicon. Well-intentioned adults perpetuate this misguided message, and the media often uses it as a slogan. A recent case illustrates how literal children may be when given a specific message. The child in this case may have evaded his rescuers, because he had been taught “not to talk to strangers.” This case and many others clearly illustrate how literal children may be when given a specific message. That’s why the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) has never supported the “stranger-danger” message, especially because experience has shown us that most children are actually taken by someone they know or are familiar with.So what does “stranger danger” really mean, and do children benefit from an outdated and incomplete message? Here’s what we have learned about the “stranger-danger” concept”:
Children don’t get it. Adults don’t practice it. It doesn’t go far enough in protecting children from potential danger
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