Teaching Kids About Strangers. Part 2
Say No To Strangers
The other day we were all getting ready to go out to dinner. My husband was in the shower and I was getting dressed. Serophina was playing in her room. Suddenly she comes into our room talking about how a man was knocking at the door so she opened it and he asked for her mom or dad. At first I was a little confused because I would never dream that she would ever answer the door to a stranger without coming to us first! But that’s exactly what happened! I followed her to the front door and sure enough there was a man standing right there on our porch with the door wide open.
We obviously didn’t hear him knocking because we were in the other room. Serophina heard it though and was more than happy to open the door for him to see what he wanted. Turns out he was a salesman for a home security company. Ironic, huh?
After he left, Kevin and I sat down with her to explain that she should NEVER EVER open the door to a stranger without us. At the end of our explanation we asked her if she understood and she said yes. She said “ I’ll never open the door for a stranger unless they’re nice because that man was a nice stranger. Some strangers are nice.”
No! No! No! She was getting it aaaaaaalllllllll wrong! She was simply too naive to be brainwashed about the evil ways of strangers.
We ended up dropping the subject only after she reassured us that she would never open the door unless we were with her.
Imagine the aneurysms I’m going to have when she’s old enough to ride her bike and run the neighborhood by herself. You know how we have microchips for dogs? Why can’t we do the same for kids? I know there might be some ethical issues involved there, but I would feel much better knowing that there was some kind of tracking device on my kid… just in case. Besides, I’m sure when she’s a teenager it’ll come in handy for a whole new set of reasons.
How have you talked to your kids about strangers?
