Stranger Danger

My 4 & 3 year olds sons wanted to play out the front of our house this afternoon and take a walk on their own. (We normally wait out the front for their dad to get home). Anyway I told them that they could not go out alone but I would go with them.

Question - how do I explain stranger danger at this age?

My 4 year old got very angry and wanted to know why. I told him sometimes bad people might try to take children then realised this sounded very ominous. So I posed a question if someone he didn't know offered him a chocolate if he went for a drive/ walk with them what would he do. He paused and asked why he couldn't take the chocolate! So I said if someone he didn't know tried to make him get in a car he should run away... Then he wanted to know why he should run. Thankfully our 8 year old neighbour came and they were distracted.

But it got me thinking how should I explain at such a young age? Of course they are never allowed out the front or a walk on their own.

Thanks - I assume schools still do the talk with the police visit but not at our kinder.

Personally I don't do stranger danger, children need to understand it is ok to talk to adults they don't know but to never go with them. I just say you mustn't ever go with someone even people you know without mum or dad or whoever is looking after you knowing, because they would be worried about where you have gone. At least 99% of people they don't know are not dangerous, so I don't want them thinking they are.

It's something I worry about constantly. There was an attempted abduction outside our school last year :(

I know it sounds ominous and scary but I went with what you said - there are people out there who want to do bad things and it is mummy's job to protect my children from bad things. So they don't go with anyone they don't know. DD (prep this year) is not to leave school with anyone other than mummy or daddy, unless we have told her it is ok (as in word her up - Grandma will pick you up today!). If anyone tries to take them, make them get into a car, or do anything that makes them feel yukky, they are to kick, scratch, bite, hit, do anything to get away. They are to find mummy, daddy, their teacher or a police man/woman and tell them they are scared.

I'd rather them scared and safe than happy and ... yeah. The alternative makes me feel ill.

Hope that helps. We've talked about it a lot.

ETA - what wysiwyg said makes sense - when we go somewhere (like the zoo, a shopping centre) I've started asking DD "If you got lost here, who would you ask for help?" and getting her to try and pick out the "safe" person. She's getting pretty good at it.

Pinky McKay had something on her blog a little while ago about 'strangers' - basically that most assaults are by someone known, who's groomed the child and family for a while beforehand e.g. the sports coach, tutor, person behind the counter at the pizza shop, weird uncle etc It suggested if your child gets lost, or needs an adults help, look for a mum with kids as they're least likely to be a 'baddie'...worth looking for the blog post.

I just went to a seminar/ training tonight and we covered this topic. We discussed that if the child has a funny feeling in their tummies and feel that something is not quite right it's probably not and it's ok to say NO I don't want to come or NO I'm going to tell my mum or NO etc etc. we should be discussing who the "safe" people are such as police man, shop assistant, mum with kids, older kids, teachers etc..
But kids normally have an instinctive feeling when things aren't quite right.
I'm not sure I'm explaining this well but I hope you get the drift.

I just tell my kids that mummy and daddy keep them safe, so they have to stay close. If they go too far away from me how can I help them? It means they are great at the zoo/public places etc because they understand i am there to help them.

I always tell my dd (5) not to go home from school with anyone but mummy or daddy or grandparents. She is very wary of strangers anyway.

I also tell them if someone physically tried to pick them up and they don't know them to kick and scream and try and get away.

I talk to DS about safe and unsafe people.
We dont take anything from people we dont know unless Mummy or Daddy say its ok.
If someone he doesnt know talks to him he needs to say thank you for talking to me but Im not allowed to talk to people I dont know.
If he gets lost at the shops he needs to find a checkout person, or a mum with kids or a police person.

:

---

I just went to a seminar/ training tonight and we covered this topic. We discussed that if the child has a funny feeling in their tummies and feel that something is not quite right it's probably not and it's ok to say NO I don't want to come or NO I'm going to tell my mum or NO etc etc. we should be discussing who the "safe" people are such as police man, shop assistant, mum with kids, older kids, teachers etc..
But kids normally have an instinctive feeling when things aren't quite right.
I'm not sure I'm explaining this well but I hope you get the drift.

---

That's what I was getting at when I said that if something makes DD feel yucky she should tell me.

The other day a close friend of ours was visiting with her two kids and her toddler choked on a piece of watermelon. She wasn't breathing and my friend, her hubby and I all flew into action trying to get her breathing, me on the phone to Triple zero... It was intense. My kids knew something was wrong and stayed out of the way and really quiet.

After it was all over and toddler was ok, DD told me she didn't feel good in her tummy. She started crying and said she felt sick when she thought about it and that she had felt really yucky when it was all happening.

So she knows the yucky feeling that I mean.

It. Is tricky because we teach them not to talk to strangers but to approach a policeman or someone in authority....who most of the time will be a stranger.

Some schools of thought teach about tricky people. Tricky people want them to break safety rules (leave without mum or dad) or do something that makes them uncomfortable. They may be known to a child.

We have taught our kids about rules for their body from a young age. Tat helps with that concept.

I read a good article about tricky people vs stranger danger on a blog a year or 2 ago, we adopted that approach because as someone else said we want them to approach a stranger when in trouble but we also don't want them to ignore creepy people they know either.

Its a hard one.

I reckon kids need to learn from early on that their bodies belong to themselves, and they have the right to refuse any contact or other things that they don't feel comfortable with. Even from their parents and others considered 'safe', because it's not always easy to distinguish between those that are 'ok' and those that aren't (and frankly, they're in greater danger from people they know than strangers).
It can make things difficult, but discussions of safety can work into this also, as obviously there are some rules that they need to follow for safety reasons. But if they don't want to play with x kid or kiss auntie or whatever, that's ok.
I like the idea of tricky people. :)
I think kids usually know when something's not right, they just also need to know that it's ok for them to say no and that they won't get into trouble.