With Health, Safety, and Community Helpers coming up next week, it is a great time to start (or continue) a conversation about personal safety with your little people. "Stranger Danger" is a cutesy rhyme, but that is mostly all it is. Did you know that 90% of childhood sexual abuse occurs by someone with whom the child knows and has a trusted, established relationship, not by a stranger?
Instead, of teaching kids to beware of strangers, teach your kids about "tricky people". A tricky person can be someone you know well, don't know at all, or know a little bit (a mailman, a familiar face at the park, the ice cream truck driver). Teach your kids that it's not what someone looks like that makes them "tricky," but what they ask your child to do. Tricky people do tricky things, such as offering children bribes-candy, or money; asking for help (grown-ups typically ask other grownups for help); being secretive; or asking kids to break their parents rules.
One of the best ways to talk to younger children about any danger is by sorting through hypothetical situations wtih them. Throw out various "what would you do if …?" scenarios (if they throw a ball into the road, if a person asks them to go for a ride without their parents permission, if someone tells them you sent them to pick them up). Instead of lecturing your kids, have them brainstorm ways they would respond and start a dialouge about what the consequences of those answers would be. The goal is to lead them to have the correct instincts when it comes to potential dangers. These 10 rules are short and sweet and to the point. They are easy to understand for our children and they are easy to remember.
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