Teaching Children about Stranger Safety in 2016

It is a new year and time for new resolutions. The world has, indeed, become a scary place for children and for adults. Parents, however can help make their children less afraid in 2016 by teaching them to take a proactive role in staying safe from abuse and predator harm. Below is a brief excerpt from the first chapter of my award-winning book, What Would You Do? A Kid’s Guide to Staying Safe in a World of Strangers:

            The world seems like a scary place sometimes, doesn’t it? You hear adults talking about bad things that happen. That can be pretty frightening to you as a child in a grown-up world.  You hear about war and terrorists.  You hear about killer storms.  Sometimes you even hear news reports about child abductions.  Do you know what it means to be abducted?  If a child is abducted, it means he is taken against his will by someone.

The abductor might harm him or ask him to do something that may

make him feel uncomfortable.  

Most children who are abducted are returned safely. A smart and tough team of police officers and special police from the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) carefully look for them.  Nevertheless, hearing stories of such things can be terrifying.  Don’t worry!  Our country is doing everything it can to protect you from terrorists, natural disasters and storms.  Your parents will try to protect you from any kind of harm or threat from a possible abductor.  And you will learn in this guidebook that you can take an active part in protecting yourself as well.

Possibly you have heard some adults use the expression Stranger Danger.   This is not a very good thing to say.  It might make you think that all strangers are bad and dangerous.  The truth is that most people, including most strangers, are good.  But some people, including some strangers, aren’t good.

Wouldn’t it be terrific if you could tell the bad people from the good people?  But you can’t always tell such a thing. Therefore, you must learn to be careful around all strangers.  To do this, you must understand what a stranger is and whom to trust.  As you get better at doing this, I’m sure the world will seem a whole lot less scary to you.

My book, What Would You Do? A Kid’s Guide to Staying Safe in a World of Strangers, is an excellent resource for teaching children in a kid-friendly way about stranger safety and for giving them strategies to be proactive in keeping themselves safe from abuse, abduction or harm. The book is available on Follett, Ingrams, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books-a-Million. I am providing the Amazon link here.