Teaching your child to be safe – Part Two

The goal here is to instill safety without creating fear…

As we previously discussed in the previous blog on this topic, becoming a parent is a wonderful experience but it can be fraught with fears, and none more so than fear for the safety of our beloved children. However, our fears can transfer to our offspring and make them even more nervous than necessary.

However much we feel the need to protect them from every possible form of danger, we need to help them to learn how to take care of themselves as they develop; by showing them how to recognise risks and potentially harmful situations, without creating fearful and anxious children.

Here are a few Do’s and Don’ts that are designed help you to achieve your goal of raising a well informed and resourceful child, without making them feel fearful:

DO

• Teach your child their own name and both parents names (plus address and telephone number for older children) in case they ever become separated from you or a carer in an unfamiliar public space.
• Insist that younger children remain in sight in public spaces.

• Make sure you can always give an accurate and full description of what your child looks like and exactly what they are wearing. This information is vital if you became separated somewhere. In case there is any form of separation incident you need to have:
  • Explained who they should go to – people in the correct uniform or another parent with a child.
  • Pointed out the reception area, check-out desk, etc. wherever you go.
  • For older children set up meeting up points.

• Set boundaries: for where you child is allowed to go alone and with whom.

 

• Explain that your child should watch out for:
  • Adults who ask them for help – looking for their lost puppy for example. Explain that an adult would ask another adult if they really needed help. If any adult asks them for help they should go and tell a trusted adult.
  • Anyone who suggests that they go somewhere alone with one adult unless a trusted adult has told them it’s OK.
  • Anyone who asks them to do something they don’t feel comfortable with.
  • People who ask them to keep a secret from their parents or a teacher – If someone says that they won’t be their friend if they ‘tell’ or threatens them in some way, they should immediately tell you.
  • Anyone who wants to be too playful with them, by tickling, touching, hugging, or doing anything that makes them feel uncomfortable.

• Explain to your child that if someone offers to give them something (sweets, money, a kitten, for example), they should not take it. They should say that they need to ask their parents if that is OK. They need to know that they must tell you if anything like this does happen.

 

• Ensure that your child knows that they should never go with someone they don’t know even if that person insists that they have your permission or that it is an emergency.

 

• Make sure they know which kind of circumstances require them to call the emergency services. Explain how to contact the emergency services should such a situation arise.

 

• Tell older children not to answer the door when they are home alone, unless they are certain that the caller is a known and trusted person.

DON’T

• Create a culture of fear – it can be frightening enough to be out in public without being scared of every single person on the street.
• Talk about strangers as though everyone is dangerous – crimes against children are as likely to be perpetrated by someone the child knows:
  • Making your child fearful of all strangers might mean that they are afraid to seek help from adults when necessary – such as a lost child who is too frightened to approach a security guard to help them to find their parents, or a lost child who evades rescuers because they are strangers to him/her.
• Allow your child to believe that people will look inherently wicked – in reality this is not the case.

This information may seem like a lot for any child to ingest but in reality, most of this information is imparted slowly over the years, as a child develops and gains more independence. It is of course essential not to frighten them or to curtain any normal childhood experiences.

Teaching children how to take care of themselves and what steps to take in an emergency, will teach them valuable life lessons, which will see them through their childhood and into adulthood.