Safety question...when Do You Start Teaching About Strangers, Etc.?

Protecting the Gift is a GREAT book. It deals with everything from strangers, to babysitters, to school situations. I'm sure you could pick up a used copy on amazon.com for a good price.

Sadly, it is never too early to have conversations about strangers. It's dreadful that there are horribly bad people out there who seek to take advantange of sweet innocent children. They are predators and do not have any moral scruples. They do not wait until a certain age, as a result, neither can we.

The Safe Side Video was by far the best tool I've come across about strangers. It really gets the message across, and even brought up stuff I hadn't even begun to think about. It did it in a fun way too, my little boy loves the video and has absorbed its lessons.

I have been wondering about this stuff too. my daughter is 3.5 and so far I am taking it slow she really likes movies like snow white and enchanted and even dora's fairy tale adventure which all have a stranger giving the character fruit and them falling asleep so we started by telling her that is was bad for snow white to take the apple from the stranger. so she picked up don't take apples from strangers and then we started telling that it was bad to take any thing from a stranger and then don't pet a stranger's dog or cat. then we would go over what a stranger is. so I would ask " is mommy a stranger" and she would say no and then we would say "is the lady at the park a stranger" etc.
another thing that I have noticed is that for some reason people always want to give her things so I can't even tell you how many times random people have just tried to give her money and toys for no reason so I have started ask them to please not do that because I don't want her to feel comfortable taking things especially if I am not there and if I had thought about it before I prob. would have put a stop to it long before now so my son will not be recieving gifts from strangers at all even when I am around.

Hello L.,

I think as soon as your kids start going places that they will be exposed to people they do not know is a good time to talk to them. Dont be afraid to tell her that there are bad people in the world who are not nice to kids. She needs to know, I know it is a scary thing to bring up to your child and it was hard for me to have to tell my sons that there are people out there that hurt lil' kids. I tried not to make it sound too scary just -matter of fact- like, and maybe a little sad. There was no good way I found to say about appropriate touch other than, your body is yours only and no one should touch you where your underwear goes.

It sucks that we have to have this conversation with our sweet and innocent children but it is necessary! I hated having to do it, no matter how you say it, you know that you have just told them something that has scared them. The sadest part is the fact that this is a conversation you have to continue to have as they grow up.

K.

We started in a general way. During potty training, we started calling her genitals her privates and that only she needed to ever touch them. Not even Mommy and Daddy. Except a doctor. Since our girl is a social butterfly and eager to talk with anybody, we decided around 3 is a good time to start. When she was out of sight for too long at a playground, I'd find her and tell her that I was worried because what if I couldn't find her and it was time to go home. Or what if she got hurt and I wasn't there. She wasn't much of a wanderer so this wasn't hard to impress upon her. As she got older we'd incorporate the whole "there are bad people out there". She's 7 now and understand that she should never get into anybody's car or house without talking to Mommy and Daddy first. Even if we know them. One thing to remember is statistically, it isn't a stranger that hurts our kinds, its somebody they know. It was my uncle that got way too familiar with me and my sister. Keep those lines of communication open. Help her feel like if she ever is scared or confused about anything, she can talk with you. Sometimes hard to do when they are driving you freaking nuts all the time! :-)

It depends on how sensitive your child is as to what to tell them. I've heard a lot about the safe side videos. My three year old is really smart and really tough, I was able to tell her the complete truth, that there are bad people out there and we need to be careful about who we talk to, and always stay with mommy or daddy in public. She hasn't been scared at all and it totally worked!