Stranger Danger vs. Tricky People

Contributing Writer: Devin Rojas of New Jersey

I’ve never liked the lesson “stranger danger”. We’re a military family, we’ve moved to new locations several times, people move in and out of the street faster than I can switch a load of laundry. Police and child protection investigators are people I teach my kids to trust. Nice moms at Target when you’re lost, waiters, the mailman, Santa Claus... all these people are strangers. Do I go through the world telling my kids that they’re dangerous by nature of being strangers when research shows that children are far more likely to be harmed by someone they know and trusts? I strongly believe in using facts and evidence to guide my parenting in addition to instinct. The facts are that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men report being sexually abused before they were 18 years old, and that 73% of them didn’t report it for a year and 45% for five years. Those numbers alone tell me that there is a reasonably high likelihood of one of my children encountering this, and that I may not know about it.

If we know this then why are we still teaching stranger danger? I have already had many “talks” with my children. I started the moment they could talk with “good touch, bad touch”. I believe it’s never too early to teach children. They are now 9, 6, and 2 and we still have these conversations regularly. A few years ago friend shared an article about tricky people which really gave me the language to help my then 6-year old know what to look for. So, what are tricky people?

Tricky people are people who:

·  Seem far too old to be interested in your kid.
·  Tell your kid to keep secrets
·  Make your kid feel guilty, who encourage your kid to do things they don’t want to do. 
·  Don’t listen to your child/s boundaries. 
·  Try to get your kid alone. 
·  Encourage kids to break family or household rules, they may ask kids to hide things from their parents.

A tricky person can be the nice mom next door who sneaks extra candy to the kids after the parents have asked her not to, then tells kids its their little secret.  A tricky person may be the soccer coach who asks your son to stay late to help with a project, but that he must keep the project a secret. A tricky person may be the grandparent who continues to have tickle fights with a child, despite the child having told the grandparent multiple times that it bothers them.

Photo by: http://www.jessfielderphotography.com/