Should I Talk to My Kids About Kidnapping?

If you’ve ever lost sight of your child in a store, park or any other crowded place—even for a split second—you understand the full blunt force of the word terror. The fear, of course, is that your child has been abducted. Kidnapped. Taken away for God-knows-what-purpose-or fate. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare because it’s possible, even though we know it’s not likely.

We all warn our kids not to talk to strangers (don’t we?), and then we see the Dateline exposés where an actor approaches one child after another with a plea to “help him find his lost dog” or some other seemingly plausible ruse, and every single time the kid trots off in hot puppy pursuit.

There’s a wonderful, week-long summer camp where I live called Safety Town, specially designed for incoming elementary school students. Credentialed teachers and counselors talk about how to be safe on foot and on a bike, what to do when there’s an earthquake or fire, and kids “graduate” camp miniature experts in the art of dialing 911. Campers get to ride a bus, climb on a real fire engine and visit with police officers, firefighters, forest rangers and paramedics; Smokey the Bear even makes a guest appearance, which is always a hit. But the reason most of my parent-friends send their kids to Safety Town is because of the infamous Stranger Danger discussion.

Parents are invited to that one, and it is in turns hilarious and heartbreaking. The instructor asks the kids to give her examples of touches that feel good (hugs, back rubs, tickles), and touches that don’t feel so good (spankings, pinches, bites). She encourages them to describe “fun secrets” (surprise parties, wrapped birthday presents, an unopened letter) and “secrets that don’t make you feel good inside (“If you tell your mommy, something bad will happen to you/her.”). As I sat with my oldest daughter, who was five at the time,  listening to this speech, I knew that it was time for her to have this information, but I also felt like her innocence was being ripped away. I didn’t want her to have to hear all of this because I didn’t want her to live in a world where she needed to.

But she does so we sat through it together. She asked a lot of questions afterward, and I tried to answer them honestly, and without scaring her. It was and surely will continue to be a delicate balancing act. After all, there’s really no gentle way (that I know of) to explain to a child that there are very bad people in the world that do very bad things to children but probably not you but just in case here’s what to do if one of them grabs you at the mall.

How do you talk to your kids about “stranger danger” without scaring them witless?