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Coalition for Children
Safety Around Strangers
Teaching parents and children how to deal with strangers is essential for two reasons. First, to give children and parents good skills to prevent abduction. Second, to address the anxiety created for parents and children alike at the thought of stranger abduction.
Stranger Danger programs have been taught for decades. Still, all the evidence shows that children go willingly with strangers. Why? Because children don't hear what adults think they are saying.
Reducing children's vulnerability requires that parents and children have basic information about stranger offenders and how they behave. It includes understanding what children believe about strangers and how that makes them more vulnerable. This chapter will help parents and children develop specific ground rules to enhance personal safety around strangers.
Stranger offenders (hereafter called offenders) are people who abduct and/or abuse children they don't know. They do not seek a relationship with the child, as do abusers who know the child. Instead, they see children as objects for their use. They view children as weak, helpless, defenseless victims who can easily be manipulated to fulfill the offenders' needs.
These offenders range from the passive exhibitionist to the sadistic murderer. Bribery, flattery, treats and requests for help are common tricks they use to engage children. While some strangers will actually snatch a child away, this rarely happens. Most children are lured into a seemingly innocent situation with someone who acts like a "nice" person.
Of particular concern are those pedophiles who "hang out" in places where they have access to children, fast food restaurants, arcades, malls, movies, mini-markets, etc. These offenders will engage a child, molest them in the bathroom or other readily available area and then release the child. These perpetrators tend to prefer boys and report molesting hundreds of children in this manner.
Because there is no way to anticipate who these offenders are or what they will do, the best defense is to keep unsupervised children away from strangers. This is first and foremost the responsibility of parents and other responsible adults. But children also need to be educated, to learn rules that will reduce their risk when adult efforts to protect them fail.
Strangers have been the focus of so much of our concern for our children's safety that most children have a pretty distorted sense of who and what strangers are. What we've said about strangers makes sense to us, but doesn't usually make sense to them.
Children believe that the world is divided into two types of people: good guys and bad guys. We've traditionally taught them that the ones they need to worry about and watch out for are the bad guys. (Don't take candy from strangers; beware of strangers; stranger danger.) Of course, this is as impossible for children as it is for adults.
Teaching children to be afraid of strangers not only doesn't work very well, it is frightening. When we say things like, "Don't talk to strangers or get in their car because they might take you away and we'd never see you again." we scare children without protecting them.
Instead of using fear tactics, the Safe Child approach will teach you how to give your children specific guidelines and information to limit their vulnerability while maintaining their ability to move freely in their everyday lives.
Help your children to understand that there is no way to tell by the way someone looks how they are on the inside.
Talk about stereotypes. They should know that judging someone by their appearance is a mistake. Children need to learn about strangers: not any one type of stranger in particular, but strangers in general, so that they can apply the safety rules.
The rules I teach children regarding strangers build upon two simple ideas. The first is that there is only one person who is with you all the time, who can be responsible for keeping you safe, all the time. That person is you.
The second basic idea is that when children are alone, it is their job to take care of themselves. It is not their job to take care of the adults in the world. If an adult needs assistance, they need to get it from another adult, not from a child.
One of the primary ways children get hurt with strangers is by being friendly and helpful. If they understand that taking care of themselves is their first priority when they're alone, they have permission to ignore or deny adult requests for assistance.
Our goal is to have clear, concrete rules that prevent problem situations, that enable children to function safely and that still allow them to perceive the world as a fundamentally safe and nurturing place.
A stranger is anyone you don't know. You can't tell the good guys from the bad guys by how they look. You are responsible for keeping yourself safe when you're by yourself.
You are responsible for taking care of yourself, not for grownups. Adults who need help should go to another adult.
Instinct is nature's way of talking to you - listen to that inner voice.
The 4 stranger rules you should always follow when you're not with an adult who it taking care of you are:
1. Stay an arms reach plus away from strangers. Stand up, back up and run to someone who can help you if you feel afraid.
VIDEO Rule # 1
2. Don't talk to strangers.
VIDEO Rule #2
3. Don't take anything from strangers - not even your own things.
VIDEO Rule #3
4. Don't go anywhere with someone you don't know.
VIDEO Rule #4
You can't do it alone.
Protecting children from abuse and abduction by strangers is a partnership between you and your children. If you teach your children about strangers as positively and clearly as you teach them to cross the street, they will not only have a healthier attitude about the world, they will be safer.
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Copyright © 1996 -2010 Coalition for Children, Inc. a not-for-profit (501c3) organization and Sherryll Kraizer, PhD