Stranger Danger

Stranger Danger

I’ve always taken parenting responsibilities seriously and taught my children about “stranger danger”.  I told them that stranger danger is ANYONE who makes them feel uncomfortable, whether by touch or talk or even by the way someone looks at them, or by what someone tries to make a child do. They learned that stranger danger could be disguised as someone they already know, like a neighbor, a relative and I gave specifics, i.e., uncle, or Mr. Jones down on the corner.

I also told them that the stranger danger person could even be a woman. My children had been taught that they are to get away as soon as possible, refuse to do what they say if possible, run if necessary, and tell me or another trusted adult about the situation right away.

When my son was in second grade, he was walking the 3 blocks home from school with his friend. His friend that day had his bike with him, so the friend was riding his bike on the sidewalk behind my son.

Just around the corner from my home was a vehicle with a man sitting inside. The driver’s door was open. My son was the first to pass the man. My son glanced into the car as he walked by. The man was sitting in the driver’s seat with his pants down and was exposing himself. My son kept walking and his friend passed by and “noticed” the man also.

Two hours later, my son’s friend’s father came over and asked me if I had heard about what had happened on the way home from school.

I stood at the door dumbfounded because my son had not said anything at all.  I called my son to the door while I was talking with my neighbor and asked him if he could provide any more details. When asked why he didn’t tell me about the “stranger danger”, situation, my son exclaimed proudly, “I wasn’t afraid of him, Mom. I just turned around to my friend and said, ‘hey, did you see that man in the car — he wasn’t wearing pants’ and we laughed and pointed at him!”

My son had not felt threatened at all by this situation and basically handled it in his own way, by laughing and pointing at the deviant behavior. Things could have been much more different had my son been alone. Or … had the perpetrator grabbed my son and forced him into the car.

Needless to say, I changed the way I described “stranger danger” and included in my future talks on this topic that they should report to mom ANY behavior that is out of the ordinary.

I asked the kids, “Have you ever seen mom sitting in the car with no clothes on?” After the giggles subsided and they assuredly answered “no” to my relieved sense of satisfaction, I replied, “Well, if you ever see someone with behavior that is unbecoming or unlike what we’d do in our own home, then that is a reportable incident to tell mom about”.

Folks, many abused children, EVEN with education in the home, will not tell on their perpetrators. These deviants use a variety of tactics to keep the children silent.

Please, talk with your kids until you’re blue in the face! This may work, again it may not, but it sure can’t hurt.

Each child is unique in the way they handle situations. PLEASE don’t stop talking with your children about these issues!

Too much education will not cause harm or unusual fear in your children. If you include other topics for discussion with your children, such as fire safety and fire escape routes and street crossing safety, you will not be scaring your kids about these subjects, but instead, will be giving them something to feed back to you as far as “what would you do in this situation” scenarios.

Although I shared the simple incident about my son when he was in elementary school, there is much, much more I could say on this subject.

Childhood sexual abuse touched our family in a horrid way many, many years ago. I don’t think I will ever recover from the experience of closehand knowledge of that ugly nightmare.

My heart goes out to any child who has had to endure sexual abuse of any capacity and live silently with the emotional anguish, physical pain and grotesque re-occuring memories of those events. Not only have these children been robbed of their innocence, their childhood is lost forever. Most are left scarred for life.

I feel it is my duty to at least warn other parents that it CAN happen to you, regardless of the education you provide for your children, regardless of the protection you believe you are providing for them, regardless of the watchful eye you keep on them.

Remember, the sexual deviant has the upper hand in child sexual abuse. They’re watching for an opportunity when you’re not looking. Like drowning, it only takes a second. Sexual deviants don’t want to be caught, and generally they aren’t.

Stranger Danger can be the person you least suspect.

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