Stranger Danger?

Rachel Rainbolt, M.A., CEIM
www.OhanaWellness.com

“Don’t talk to strangers.”

“Just say NO to drugs.”

“Abstinence only” sex education.

These were all programs designed to keep our kids healthy and safe that have been undeniably and quantitatively proven failures.  Most of us were raised being told not to talk to strangers by our parents, teachers, and the media.  Teaching your children not to talk to strangers was a simple strategy parents loved and kids easily understood but it was based on an erroneous assessment of danger and deprived children of the skills they need to interact safely with others.  Instead, parents need to guide their children through the sea of complex human interaction and arm them with the skills and knowledge they need to stay safe.    

A message of fear and danger were presented around the idea of strangers.  The intentions of this program’s innovators and implementers were good.  The line of logic is simple and clear.  A stranger can molest or abduct your child.  It played into our parents’ greatest fears and was easy for them to swallow.  No one wants their child abducted or molested and it certainly wouldn’t be perpetrated by anyone they knew. 

Children were also easy to absorb the fear and mantra.  Young children naturally have some varying level of fear around strangers as a defense mechanism for survival.  The key to understand is that this is an early stage of development and children they graduate to a more complex understanding of people.  They gain the ability to observe and evaluate each individual with whom they come intoKai No contact.  Telling them to fear all “others” and trust all “insiders” does them a great disservice.  Especially considering that most children are molested by adults they already know.

There are several reasons why teaching your child, “Don’t to talk to strangers” is not in their best interest.  First, installing this formula into your child’s mind overrides the natural development of your child’s ability to distinguish between bad strangers and good strangers and dangerous situations that would give your child that “this doesn’t feel right” internal alarm.  All of this amazingly adaptive instinctual wisdom will be blocked off by the oversimplified blanket rule that strangers are bad and people we know are good.  Second, research shows us that your child has a better chance of remaining safe if they are taught to seek the help of good strangers.  We have all seen the child who is lost in the store standing there staring silently at the ground, looking so vulnerable and ripe for the picking by a predator.  Third, your child is statistically more likely to be molested by someone he already knows then by a stranger.  Teaching your child that strangers are bad and people you know are good disarms their individual evaluation of each person and silences their internal alarms around dangerous people in their lives.  Fourth, there are global implications of raising a child with an “others bad, insiders good” mentality.  From the simpler politics of friendship on the playground (think cliques, bullying, and a fearfulness that impedes initiating friendships) to a landscape with more serious implications like government leadership (think Hitler).  Raising your children to judge and fear or accept people by categories without actually getting to know them is not a paradigm for raising a person who is going to make a positive contribution to the world.

So what’s a parent to do with an innocent child into whom you pour all your energy and love, brimming with potential for the future when it’s your job to keep her safe?  Foster the instincts, teach the skills, and guide your child to be smart, safe, and assertive. 

Teach your child that there are good strangers and bad strangers.  Good strangers can help you.  Bad strangers are dangerous.  This is the most important departure from “Stranger Danger” because good strangers can help keep your child safe in dangerous situations.  Teach your child to seek out good strangers if you are not there and they need help.  To lay the groundwork for your child’s developing ability to tell the difference, give them specific things to look for.  A good stranger is another mother with young children.  This is the best one.  The youngest of children can easily identify a mother with young children and they are always around.  Another mother with young children will almost always help a child in distress.  Research shows that children cannot tell the difference between a police uniform and a convenience store uniform before age 4 so make sure your safe stranger identifiers are things to which your child can relate.  You can start this lesson while your child is still very young.  “She waves and says hi to everyone.  She is so friendly that I worry about her safety with strangers” qualms Amy, mother to 18-month-old River.  When in a store with your friendly little one, guide her toward safe strangers and identify them by the characteristics that make them safe.  “Look there’s another Mommy.  Say, hi to the Mommy!” 

If your child ever gets lost, they should STOP and SCREAM a specific word like your first name like an alarm.  Most times when a child is lost you have just momentarily lost sight of each other and ‘stop and scream’ will help you in several ways.  First, your child plants his feet into the ground like roots on a tree and stays put.  This will make him easier for you find and much harder to lure away.  Second, it calls major attention.  This will make him easier for you to find and also harder to abduct because it will call the attention of everyone within earshot.  This can be embarrassing if you are in the library or at a restaurant but it’s worth it.  And when you reunite congratulate him on doing everything right.  Don’t put your embarrassment on him or it will discourage him from being as assertive or vocal in the future when he could really be in danger.  You will want every decibel in his corner. 

Teach your child that if they are lost they should NEVER LEAVE with a stranger no matter what.  Mommy will always come to you.  This is an important one because this is where bad strangers can get tricky.  They can tell your child that they will bring them to their Mommy.  “Mommy sent me to bring you to her.”  A good stranger will keep you safe while I get to you or will bring me to you.  A bad stranger will try to take you away.  If a bad stranger tries to pull their roots from the ground and take them away, they should scream “Get back, bad stranger!” like an alarm and kick and punch and bite as hard as they can.  Even a police officer will not ask your child to come with them as long as they can tell them their name and phone number.  The officer will stand with your child and attempt to identify them and contact you. 

Teach your child their full name, your full name, and their phone number.  The best way to do this is in song.  The youngest of children can memorize and recite a song.  My 1-year-old sings “R-A-I-N spells RAIN, B-O-L-T spells BOLT, R-A-I-N, B-O-L-T spells RAINBOLT!  You can also write your child’s name and phone number on the inside of the tongue of their shoe in permanent marker.  You can instruct them to show it to a good stranger who is trying to help them. 

Talk about grown-ups and strangers and encourage open communication.  When that man touched her head in line at the grocery store and she recoiled, talk through the experience with her right then and there.  “The man touched your head.  You didn’t like it?  Say, ‘No touch (and hold up her hand as if saying stop)!’”  “Is that girl saying hi to you?  Is she being nice?  Say hi!  ‘Hi girl (wave).’”  Ask Bay Noyour children about encounters with their teachers, friend’s parents, even family members.  Call attention to adults who were helpful (safe strangers) and feelings of discomfort.  Encourage your children to listen to and trust those feelings inside telling them ‘safe’ or ‘dangerous’. 

Teach your child to confidently assert herself.  Most parents teach their children to obey adults but respect and unconditional obedience are two different things.  Children should always respect adults but they should not be afraid to assert their personal boundaries.  The best way to teach this is through modeling.  If a child pushes her on the playground you say “Don’t push her!” while holding up your hand as if saying stop.  The next time you can stand behind her and hold her hands.  Say, “Don’t push me!” and hold her hands up in front of her.  The same modeling of assertiveness for personal boundaries should be used with strangers.  If a stranger gets too close and you can see that it is making her uncomfortable, say politely, “Back up please, you’re making her uncomfortable.”  For those of us who never learned to assert our personal boundaries as children, this can be a lot harder than it sounds.  But if you let it go, she will learn to let it happen.  React exactly the way you would hope she would if you were not there.   
 
While dropping my 4-year-old off at preschool one day my 1-year-old was standing near the sand table eating his peanut butter sandwich.  One of my son’s preschool teachers grabbed his arm and pulled him over to me saying, “He can’t have this here” (peanut butter-free campus).  My son immediately put on his assertive face and said, “Teacher touch Bailey’s arm! Bailey no like it!  No touch Bailey’s arm, Teacher!”  It was one of those proud Mommy moments.  He was looking directly into her eyes and holding up his little hand like a stop sign.  He was not hitting or screaming but respectfully and effectively asserting his personal boundaries. 
  
Teaching children not to talk to strangers was a lesson that missed the mark.  Instead of evading danger through fear and avoidance we must teach our children to strengthen their interpersonal skills, seek help with safe strangers, and assert their personal boundaries.  Educate and empower instead of indoctrinating with fear.  This strategy will yield a better-rounded person in the long run and has been proven to increase your child’s chances of remaining safe today.  

”… in Home Depot yesterday River waved at this strange man as we were going down an aisle. She's so sweet and loves everyone - it breaks my heart to have to teach her about all the bad and dangerous stuff in the world... Of course, I guess I get to teach her about all the beauty and joy in the world too.” Amy Gailey, mother to 18-month-old River.

Stay Safe
 

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