1) How can a parent judge when their child is old enough to walk to school or go to a public place like a mall without an adult?
It's a great question; so many people ask instead at what age I feel a child be alone in public - but it isn't about an age - it's about a skill set. I can offer a test of what children would ideally know before they are ever alone in public. (I'm focusing on just those points relevant to violence and sexual predation, and leaving out obvious requirements such as knowing one's home address, important phone numbers, and other basics.)
The Test of Twelve: Do your children know ...
- How to honor their feelings - if someone makes them uncomfortable, that's an important signal;
- You (the parents) are strong enough to hear about any experience they've had, no matter how unpleasant;
- It's okay to rebuff and defy adults;
- It's okay to be assertive;
- How to ask for assistance or help;
- How to choose who to ask;
- How to describe their peril;
- It's okay to strike, even to injure, someone if they believe they are in danger, and that you'll support any action they take as a result of feeling uncomfortable or afraid;
- It's okay to make noise, to scream, to yell, to run;
- If someone ever tries to force them to go somewhere, what they scream should include, "This is not my father" (because onlookers seeing a child scream or even struggle are likely to assume the adult is a parent);
- If someone says "Don't yell," the thing to do is yell (and the corollary: If someone says "Don't tell," the thing to do is tell);
- To fully resist ever going anywhere out of public view with someone they don't know, and particularly to resist going anywhere with someone who tries to persuade them.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of adults who couldn't pass the Test of Twelve. For example, many have never considered that if a predator says "Don't yell," he is actually saying that yelling would serve you and silence would serve him. Too many people feel compelled to cooperate in their own victimization, in part because they assume they'll be hurt if they don't. Often people base their responses on incorrect assumptions: 'If I do as I'm told, he won't hurt me.'"
On TV shows, when the tough guy says, "Keep your mouth shut and come with me," actors do just that. But in real life, when a predator says, "Don't yell," he is telling you what cards you hold, literally informing you of the way to mess up his plans. "Don't yell!" should be heard by a child as "YELL!" The corollary to that is that when a child hears, "Don't tell," they should hear, "Tell."
2) What is the best way to teach children about stranger safety without scaring them and what is the best way to define a stranger?
I'm so glad your question used the phrase "stranger safety" instead of the more popular "stranger danger." I think no single maxim about safety has permeated our society as Never Talk to Strangers. Children are taught this rule when young, but the very week it's handed down, they see their parents violate it over and over. And they are themselves encouraged to violate it: "Say hello to the nice lady," "Answer the man's question," "Tell Mr. Evans your name." What children actually learn is: Never talk to strangers unless they are wearing a clown suit or a uniform, or they work at the bank, or they're registering us to vote, or they're seeking signatures on a petition, or they're handing out tasty samples, or they're nice.
Never Talk to Strangers, it turns out, isn't a rule after all, but a highly flexible and incomprehensible concept that only Mom and Dad really understand - if even they do. The list of violently inclined predatory criminals defeated because a parent told his or her child not to talk to strangers isn't long enough to be called a list at all. In other words, this popular rule doesn't work, for many reasons.
First, most kids believe a stranger is an unshaven man in tattered clothes; neither the nice neighbor nor the guy at the check-out counter is one of those. Within the message Never Talk to Strangers (because they may harm you) is the implication that people you know will not harm you. If stranger equals danger, then friend equals safety. But the opposite is true far more often. First of all, we are inherently more defended against a stranger; he must get around the defense systems of the parent and the child. The friend, conversely, is ushered inside the gates and given a pass. The friend has been gifted with what every other predator must work to gain: trust and access. So, the issue isn't strangers versus acquaintances; it is people who might harm your child versus people who won't, people who deserve your trust versus people who don't. The irony is that if your child is ever lost in public, the ability to talk to strangers is actually the single greatest asset he could have. To seek assistance, to describe one's situation, to give a phone number, to ask advice, to say No - all these interactions require the child to speak with strangers. If kids view talking to strangers as the threshold they mustn't cross, then when they do cross it (and they will), they have no further tools. Further, children raised to assume all strangers might be dangerous do not develop their own inherent skills of evaluating behavior. The rule thus hurts all of us by producing generation after generation of people who fear people, mostly because they don't understand them. Fear of people is really the fear that we can't predict their behavior.
Recognize that for every person you encounter who might hurt your child, there are literally millions who will not. Does it make sense to treat everyone as if they are in the dangerous group? That's exactly what modern Western society has done. Bottom line: The issue isn't strangers, it is strangeness. It is inappropriate behavior that's relevant - and that's what we are wise to teach our children about.
3) There is so much violence on TV. How can we explain it to our children?
My briefest answer: We don't have to explain what they don't see. I raised eight children, and I'm now on round two (a 16-month old and another baby due in a few months). Until they were teenagers, none of my kids ever saw commercial TV, not at home, anyway. There's so much to say about this topic that it's best done through a referral: Consider getting the book STOP TEACHING OUR KIDS TO KILL by Dave Grossman. Perhaps even the title says it all.4) As our children get older they start to spend time at their friend's houses. What steps can parents take to make sure they are safe when visiting other people's homes?
Before allowing a sleepover or visit, most parents want to learn something about the home their child will be staying at. My friends Jackie and Michael, the parents of three, have developed an excellent system for when their nine-year-old son asks to sleep over at a friend's: "Before you can get permission to sleep over at a friend's house, that friend must sleep over here." This method allows them to acquire some information about the other child and his family, mostly through observation and a bit through casual conversation.
Perhaps the most telling thing Jackie and Michael learn is the extent to which the other family is cautious about the sleepover. Do they call and ask questions about whether adults will be home during the sleepover? Do they call to give contact information? Do they ask to come over and see the house and meet you? Does a parent even call to introduce him or herself? Many don't.
Before approving their son to sleep over at someone's house, Jackie and Michael make contact with one of the parents. Jackie usually asks, "Would you like me to stop by and introduce myself?" If the other parent says Yes, she'll be able to observe several things at the house. She can see if there are smoke detectors, ascertain that there are no vicious dogs, and she can see how the parents interact with their children and other family members. Jackie asks what the family expects to be doing the evening of the sleepover. Jackie always asks if the other family has a gun, and if so, she needs to be satisfied that it is kept locked. One father told her, "We don't keep it locked, but no need to worry, our son [ten years old] knows all about how to handle a gun." That wasn't much reassurance for Jackie, who didn't allow the sleepover. She explained that her son is not familiar enough with guns for her to be comfortable. Jackie and Michael have an agreement with their children: If you are ever at all uncomfortable, or you just want to talk, you can call home at any time. You don't even have to ask permission to use the phone if you don't want to; you can just call home.
A family you might allow your child to stay with overnight requires at least as much scrutiny as you'd apply to a babysitter, though the strategies for gaining information are clearly different. Given how much you would ideally know before approving a sleepover, it's clear that knowing the other family well is the best course. This may reduce the number of homes you allow your kids to sleep over at, but given the stakes, that's okay.
All the people we entrust with our child's safety and well-being must cease being strangers - but how? The same way others become people we select for inclusion in our lives: We learn enough about them, they pass several of our tests, they lose their anonymity, and we discover an acceptable degree of shared values. The price of real peace of mind is not just comfort with whom we've selected, but also with how we've selected them. Every parent who has ever worried knows that real peace of mind is a bargain at that price.
5) Most of the members of our site are Moms. What can you tell us about following their gut feelings or listening to their maternal intuition?
Intuition is the foundation of all parenting decisions, both those made with added deliberation and those made in the blink of any eye when averting or managing an emergency. Every mother in nature knows on some level that she is well equipped to protect her offspring from just about anything. This natural ability is deep, brilliant, and powerful. Nature's greatest accomplishment, the human brain, is stunningly efficient when its host is at risk, but when one's child is at risk, it moves to a whole new level, one we can justifiably call miraculous. The brain built for protecting our children was field-tested for millions of years in the wild. I call it the wild brain, in contrast with the logic brain revered by so many people (mostly men). In fact, the logic brain is plodding and unoriginal, burdened with judgment, slow to accept reality, and spends valuable energy thinking about how things ought to be, used to be, or could be. The logic brain has strict boundaries and laws it wants to obey, but the wild brain obeys nothing, conforms to nothing, answers to nobody, and will do whatever it takes. It is unfettered by emotion, politics, politeness, and as illogical as the wild brain may sometimes seem, it is, in the natural order of things, completely logical. It just doesn't care to convince us of anything by using logic. In fact, it doesn't give a damn what we think. To tap into this resource, to reinvest in our intuition, to know how to avoid danger, to know, for example, whom to keep our children away from, we must listen to internal warnings while they are still whispers. The voice that knows all about how to protect children may not always be the loudest, but it is the wisest. When it comes to predicting violence and protecting children, I believe you already know most of what you need to know. You have the wisdom of the species, and the expert voice that matters most is yours. Unfortunately, society has trained us to believe we don't know the answers, that professionals know what's best and that good parents listen to them. As a result, we have come to believe we will find perfect answers outside ourselves. We won't, of course, but we can find the illusion of perfect answers, particularly if we're willing to settle for that.
When the principal tells us our concerns are baseless, when the other parents insist there's no problem, when we're assured the school-bus driver is a good guy, when the babysitter seems great to everyone else, our hesitation may be the only thing that stands between us and a fraudulent feeling of certainty. That hesitation stands there for a reason, and intuition is the conduit that connects us to our greatest resources.
