Facebook answers to my Question

I posted the question of Stranger Danger out to the Facebook world, and here are a few of the answers that I received.  I am putting these up here for the sake of anyone who is reading this but not Facebook, but also, so I can keep it in a more accessible archive for myself.



'This post at Progressive Pioneer addresses the topic a little (mostly about homeless people though): http://www.progressivepioneer.com/progressive-pioneer/2011/03/hard-conversations.html
Although the comment section might be helpful - her posts tend to get a lot of reader comments!'

' I think it probably depends on the child. How social they are and how soon they'll be out of your sight. And I think the thing is to teach caution, not fear.'

• 'what I wanted to say as a non mom but child lover is that I do not remember when my parents had the talk with me-- what I do remember though is always having caution if any stranger/ not a friend of my parents tried to approach me if my mom or dad were not there or occupied-- but never fear.
•  I think as early as 3 or 4 they must have had talks with me about the subject, and even though my family was super cheesy optimistic at the time "strangers are just friends you haven't met yet" I always knew that if anything happened when the units were not around I should tell them... of course this made me the so annoying 4 year old who has a running monologue of everything that I saw, did or see... but this has its benefits too in this case. So, I guess, you should start the dialogue whenever it comes up naturally and it feels right-- seize the 'teachable moments' as they arise-- also, you are so lovely and caring and show love for the world that you will pass this on to those lucky little men in your life-- go with your heart, your gut knows... and there are loads of great children's books that you can read to them that will deliver the message inadvertently and generate discussion so as not to freak them out but also make them careful... does that make sense?'

  
  

   

   

  I also  have a distinct memory of our super special code word, though I am not totally sure when it came up that we should have one.  This is a code word that us kids chose so that we would remember it.  We never had to use this code word, thankfully, but it was a great idea and certainly one I intend to pass along to my children.

  
  

  The purpose of this word was, if someone we didn't know, or knew vaguely, came up to us with the inevitable your mother is sick/had and accident/couldn't make it to pick you up so she asked me to do it for her......... kind of line.  If the person did not provide us with that code word, than we were to assume it was not authentic and to go and tell and adult.

  
  

  Even now, talking about it, it gives me a sense of foreboding.  That feeling like, everything isn't lolly pops and sunshine like I had initially assumed (though in all honesty I wasn't one of those constantly happy go lucky kind of kids).  That pinnacle moment of 'there could be people out there that may want to hurt you.  A scary but absolutely necessary concept.