Remember that scene in "O Brother Where Art Thou" when Pete declares "My daddy always said never trust a Hogwollop"? Well, we're in the throes of teaching Isaac that there are people you just can't trust, and so far, he's not doing so well. We're trying to prepare him as well as we can for Kindergarten, lessons like not talking to strangers or taking candy from strangers and I feel like we're just missing something.
He's such a friendly child, willing to strike up a conversation with anyone on pretty much any topic. Once, at the dentist, he went up to a great big feller, leaned on his knee and says "So, do you like Ratatouille?" It's hard teaching him that there are mean people out there, and that more likely than not, they won't *look* like mean people.
And this afternoon, upon coming in from burning some scrap wood at the back of the lot, Isaac says "there was some guy here, looking for Bob (neighbor)". I said "Isaac, you should never answer the door if someone knocks and Mommy isn't here." He replies that this man didn't knock, he rang the doorbell. Check. "Either way," says I, "Mommy should always answer the door, in case it's someone mean looking to take a little boy." His reply, "I'm not little, I'm almost 5 and Daddy would just catch the mean guy and pound him". Checkmate.
So, how do you teach a youngster that mean people don't always look mean? How do you teach them to avoid strangers without instilling in them unnecessary fear? Suggestions??? I think I'm going to enroll him in Safety City next month, but how do I reinforce what he's going to learn?
2 comments:
I am not sure you should. I have parented 3 kids by birth, 4 through adoption and another 150 through foster care. All of the molested kids I know, and I know more than my fair share of them,were abused by someone they knew. If you want to keep your kids safe, watch them around that friendly adult who is always willing to voluteer or good old Uncle Billy who drinks too much and likes to take the kids out for ice cream. Mom's boyfriend is a good candidate too. The truth is that it isn't your kid's job to keep himself safe and any adult with a modicum of common sense can sweet talk most innocent little kids into doing what they want. It's my job to keep an eye on my kids and trust that there are far few dangerous strangers out there than television would have us believe. I don't mean to sound so know-it-all and preachy but I think young mothers have it a lot tougher than I did when my oldest was born 34 years ago. We had a lot less to worry about. My youngest is 6 and her friend's parents worry all the time.
I have a feeling that Clay is going to be the same way. He is a friendly, outgoing little boy who knows no strangers. It is scary.
But coming from someone who was molested (ONLY once because I didn't let it happen again) when I was in 4th or 5th grade, I agree with Kathy. It is more the friendly family memebers or someone like that you have to keep your eye on. In my case it was a friend of the family that my parents trusted. I never told them what happened (until after I told Robbie just last year), but I never let it happen again because anytime they wanted me to stay with him for a few hours so they could go out, I would cry. They would end up sending me somewhere else, and I was glad for that. But they never looked furthur into it. Also like Kathy said...older people just don't think as much of it because they didn't grow up in a time where they had to worry too much about it. To this day I don't blame my parents. Like I said, he was a good family friend of my entire family, so they never would have suspected anything.
I think that just talking to him about strangers and stuff is enough.
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