Does Teaching Children About Strangers Keep Them Safe?

There was a time when learning about “stranger danger” was practically a part of growing up. Public service announcements, classes in schools and parents across the nation feared that their kids were going to be abducted by strangers and felt that teaching them about the dangers of strangers was crucial to keeping them safe. That’s no longer the case today because adults have come to realize that much of the harm that comes to kids happens at the hands of people who aren’t strangers at all. But there’s still that bit of danger which comes with not teaching kids about the risks of associating with strangers. So how do we handle this problem in the modern world?

Parents have to teach their children about a great number of dangers in the world around them and they must do it in a way that provides them with important information without creating unnecessary fear. One of these areas of education is teaching children about the danger of going off somewhere with strangers without making them afraid of meeting new people. You don’t want your child running off into the park with the shady guy who started talking to her there but you also want her to be able to meet people without being afraid. This is done by conveying to your child the importance of checking with you before getting to know people.

This helps to eliminate the confusion of “stranger danger”. The main problem with the old campaign was that kids had trouble identifying who a stranger in their lives was. They saw the janitor at dad’s work every time they went in there so they didn’t think that he was the scary stranger. Or the true stranger in the park would introduce himself by name and kids would think that meant that he wasn’t a stranger anymore. By teaching your children less about the specifics of who is a stranger and instead teaching them to come talk to you before they talk to someone, you reduce this confusion.

Establish a pattern for your children which they can follow to keep them safe. Explain to them that they need to check with you before spending time with anyone. This means that they’ll ask you before they walk down the street to grandma’s house, you’ll know which friend they are on the playground with and you’ll be able to get a good glimpse at the stranger who just approached your child at the park. At all levels, this type of interaction with your child keeps her safe from others, strangers and all, because you know where she is and who she is with.

More importantly, this pattern helps to keep you in regular communication with your child. By having your child come to you for permission to spend time with others, you teach your child about how to discern who is and isn’t appropriate to spend time with. It may be life-saving when she is young in that she will be less likely to wander off with an abductor but it can also be life-saving when she is a teen and she comes to you to discuss the pros and cons of dating a certain boy. The pattern will extend to many lessons about human interaction, not just the immediate threat of “stranger danger”.

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