Having outgoing kids can be a really fantastic thing. Especially when you're waiting in a long line and your chatty three-year-old makes friends with everyone and people chill out. Both of my kids are super friendly, which I love since I was a very shy kid myself. We can't go to the grocery store or the auto body shop without my son or daughter making a new friend and gathering information along the way. In fact, my daughter once got a free blow-out at a hair salon because she so totally charmed the woman doing my hair.
What I'm saying is being friendly to strangers has its advantages. But a series of incidents with strangers that set off my mom alarm made me realize that my kids don't have a filter yet. They really can't figure out who is a nice check-out lady, and what guy should probably not be allowed to work around children, if his creep-tastic leer is any indication. And I have no idea how to inject that information into their two- and five-year-old brains.
I tried after one encounter to explain that "You don't have to talk to strangers," only to have my daughter say, "But he was funny." Yeah, he was funny. If you think an inappropriate interest in toddler swim class protocol is funny. Still, I was there to protect my daughter and a little bit of bizarre conversation in my presence did not harm her in the slightest. But if I'm not around, I don't want my kids thinking they can open up to any weirdo on the street.
Granted, I would be hard-pressed to think of a time my kids would be unattended and talking to random people in public. It would be nice, however, to trust that they have any instincts when it comes to weeding out potential dangerous adults from the majority of people in the world. As small as those numbers might be, it's not unrealistic to think they could encounter one such adult. We did twice in a row at the grocery store and then the coffee shop.
I don't worry about my children being abducted. I think the odds are in my favor as I don't have an ex-husband with custody issues, nor a weird cousin who believes these kids are really hers. I just want my kids to "get" when someone is off. And there's nothing in their experience thus far that can serve as a reference. We don't have a neighborhood drunk to avoid, or "that crazy Uncle Charlie" who usually stays in his mother's attic.
I'm simply hoping that this friendliness is someday tempered with self-preservation. After all, there will surely be a time they go to the grocery store without me. Right?
How do you teach your kids to recognize creepy people?
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Comments 51
I personally don't think that stereo types or undoing them are the real threat with children. It seems to me that the real situation to fear are the Jerry Sandusky's of the world. People of power and influence, people who are respected in the community. This man raped children for TWO DECADES and the entire community covered for him all along. Some just knew things weren't right, others had first hand knowledge - walking in on an assualt in progress and doing NOTHING.
I think that children need to be educated in who they can tell when something isn't right, how to recognize when it isn't right and what to do in that moment to stop it. Teaching children that homeless people are scary or that people of color are sometimes out to commit random acts of violence aren't necessarily priorities for me in the realm of protecting our children - as the article says when are our children going to be at the grocery store alone? They're far more likely to encounter abuse from someone they know an mistakenly trust.
Teach your kids to go with their guts if someone seems "off" ans stated above - regaurdless of the popularity of the feeling. If your "uncle Bob" makes your kids uncomfortable, don't FORCE them to give him a kiss on the lips at every holiday function. Show them that they can trust you to proctectt hem by not ignoring your own spidey senses when it comes to strange behaviors in your own back yard - not just on those scary streets outside.
As for bullies, I for one do not teach my child that he has to except the behaviors of others. I teach him not to fight, but to use his words. To tell the big kids who pick on him that he doesn't like it, and that he doesn't have to play with those kids. I'm certainly not going to tell my three year-old to wallop the kid back when I've spend the past two and half years teaching him NOT to hit. I won't teach him to go to the bully's level and fight, just like I won't teach him that he has to ignore disrespectful behavior and befriend this kid anyway.
I think kids who grow up in healthy homes naturally develop a "creep sensor". Yours might be just a bit young yet. I really believe the best defense against creeps is a healthy home that teaches good boundary setting. At some point, though, you have to have a talk with your kids and tell them specifics about what is NOT ok--like being touched in certain ways or being alone with someone you don't know (Just thinking about my cousin doing this with her kids when they went to swim class--mine isn't old enough for this talk yet).
I completely agree with the statment that society has taught us to ignore our internal survival instincts. Especially as women, we're usually blown off with comments like "oh, don't be so dramatic, you're over-reacting, you're paranoid". Police officers and FBI agents are taught to hone those gut instincts. We have them for a reason.
The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that protect us from Violence by Gavin de Becker, and his sequel "Protecting the Gift" are both outstanding tools for the parental arsenal. While the first book focuses on the adult reader, the second book is focused on parents of children of all ages.
Journey into Darkness by John F. Douglas is another invaluable resource. Douglas is a world renowned FBI profiler and the inspiriation base for the character of Clarise Starling's mentor in Silence of the Lambs. While this book is hard to read at some points because of the actual case studies of child offenders, by the end it's very empowering. He devised a chart for parents that shows at what age certain info can be retained by children, from toddler to teen, and how to use that info to empower rather than create fear. All are HIGHLY recommended to every mom, and have a place of honor in my library.
Children can't grasp when people are "off". They have no ability to think in abstract thought until they are older.
All you can do is tell them over and over that there are bad people out there, and you do have to stay with them until they are old enough to decide for themselves who is good and who is bad.
Sadly, the really bad people in this world are often very skilled at pretending to be good.
there are good and there are bad every where , we need to let our kids be friendly when we are near, but not always .
I am a grown woman with a small dog. I noticed that MANY parents payed NO attention when their children ran across the park to see my little dog. I walked her there every day and stayed away from the children purposely so my dog wouldn't be frightened. I walked her very near my car.
I began my own "lessons" about "strangers" to these children.
As the children got close, I would look them in the eyes and very seriously say, "I'M A STRANGER".
The children had never thought of a middle aged, clean woman as a stranger who could do them harm. I could see the surprised look in their eyes.
It is frightening to me that so many younger parents are completely innocent and naive about stranger danger. You have to keep your eyes on your child. At all times. I am not advocating paranoia, just awareness and attention to your child and your surroundings at all times.
I taught my daughter this: "DON'T BE SCARED, BE AWARE!". It works!
Thanks, Cindie
I agree with LittleManMama