Teaching Stranger Danger & Striking a Balance

Wednesday 4th of September 2013 | Category: Opinion | Written by: Siobhan Thomas

ITV’s Daybreak ran a feature this morning on the issue of children’s vulnerability when it comes to trusting strangers.

A Simple Experiment

They tested 9 children in a park, with their parents’ consent, to see whether they would leave the park with a stranger. The parents accompanied their children to the park but stepped out of the fenced area under the guise of taking a phone call. Meanwhile a man approached the child and attempted to get them to leave the park with him in order to find his lost dog.

Despite the fact that most of the mothers did not expect their children (all aged around 5 years old) to go with a stranger, 7 out of 9 left the park with the man, quite happily. There was no physical contact made, no force used and no threatening or sinister behaviour involved and the average time it took for him to persuade a child to go with him was a mere 90 seconds.

Would your child go?

The shocking part of the findings is not so much how many children went with the man, but more the fact that the parents believed that their child had been taught not to go with strangers. It is thought that most children expect a stranger to appear or behave in a sinister manner, and that some form of physicality would be used from the word go. The lesson to us all is in re-evaluating our approach to teaching children what, or who, a stranger is and also in helping them to understand that abductions (or whatever terminology you chose to use) don’t necessarily involve someone physically forcing a child away with them.

Would it even happen to your child?

It’s important to put these things in perspective, and child abductions are still relatively rare in the UK. For the last 2 years child abduction has accounted for only 2.4% of all offences against children in England and Wales. However, that still amounts to more than 500 such incidences a year – with around a half of these cases being stranger abduction (as opposed to a parent or another person known to the child). So for the hundreds of families who have been through this scenario, the risk is very real indeed. Child on a swing

One point I would make with regard to this experiment, is that it is unlikely that most parents would step out of the park in order to take a phone call – but the model is still effective as I think most parents would admit. Fundamentally it is very hard to keep a close eye on your children at all times in a park-type environment, particularly if you have more than one child in your care.

Keep them inside, take away all their freedom and allow them only to talk to those you know?

It’s tempting to see this as the best approach for your child, but in reality we need to take a more balanced approach. I myself am a little uncomfortable with the term ‘stranger danger’. It promotes distrust in those people we don’t know to an extent that has the potential to negatively impact every day life. I think it’s important to teach children firm safety rules, but to do so without damaging their ability to interact with people socially.

The report has made me realise that I need to spend more time explaining to my children that strangers with bad intentions may appear to be perfectly friendly, kind or even generous – and that they must never go with them despite any temptations to do so. However, I don’t want my children to ignore the friendly shoppers in the supermarket queue who say hello to them, or the dog walkers who compliment their scooter riding. I don’t want them to lose confidence in the good intentions of most human beings because ultimately I think this could be damaging to their upbringing, their social development and their enjoyment of many aspects of normal life.