How do I Teach my Child about Safety around Strangers?
Teaching children to identify unsafe behaviours
Published on 14 February, 2024
Preschool years (4-6 years)
Young children are mostly accompanied by a trusted adult such as their parent, caregiver, or teachers in school. The only scenarios where children may potentially encounter a stranger with ill intentions without the knowledge of a trusted adult, is if they get lost, or unintentionally separated from their trusted adult (e.g. while in a crowded shopping mall, or when a stranger approaches the child while the parent is on a phone call).
Sometimes, the person with ill intentions is someone they are familiar with, such as an older friend, family member, or relative. Beyond teaching your child to identify strangers, it’s important to help them identify and respond to threatening situations and behaviours from people they know.
The most effective way to teach your child how to identify threatening situations and behaviours is through role-playing many different scenarios that they may potentially find themselves in.
Preschool-aged children do not yet have the cognitive or emotional skills to accurately identify the intentions of others, and they can be a lot more trusting of people, even strangers. At this age, children acquire knowledge and make sense of the world through pretend play. The most effective way to teach your child how to identify threatening situations and behaviours is through role-playing many different scenarios that they may potentially find themselves in.
You can teach your child about safe/unsafe behaviours of older children and adults, through games and play, such as:
- Identifying good and bad touch
- Being told to keep a secret
- Being offered candy/money/an animal/soft toy/car ride
- Being asked to follow someone away from their trusted adult
It’s also important to teach your child simple rules about personal safety, such as their full name and address, and how to convey this information to a safe adult should they get lost. This can be done by pointing out places where they can receive help from a safe adult, such as a teacher in school, a policeman at a neighbourhood police station, or an information counter at a shopping mall.
Repetition of rules and role-playing different scenarios in several different contexts is often necessary.
The cognitive thinking skills of young children vary, and hence repetition of rules and role-playing different scenarios in several different contexts is often necessary before children can remember what you’re teaching them. Since younger children may not have the ability to distinguish the intentions of others, teach them to say “no” or to shout for help when they are alone in an unfamiliar situation, and are unsure how to respond.
It’s good to have regular conversations with your child in a calm and honest manner, without frightening your child unnecessarily. We want to strike a balance between precaution and over-protectiveness.
While there is no guaranteed method in helping young children ascertain all threatening behaviours and situations, an effective strategy is to teach them to trust their instincts, and to immediately inform you if someone is making them feel uncomfortable. The best precaution to take is to be alert and attentive of your child’s whereabouts at all times, and to have a secure, trusting relationship with your child where they are comfortable to share everything with you.
Primary years (7-9 years)
Children in their primary years may have honed their ability to identify threatening behaviours and situations, and to discern the intentions of others. They are likely to be in more situations without adult supervision too, such as when they’re at the playground, or having a sleepover at a friend’s house. They are also better able to remember and practise the rules for personal safety, and are much better equipped to recount an unsafe situation they have found themselves in to a trusted adult, or to get the attention of others by shouting for help. They may also begin to have much more exposure to online content and will need to know the potential risks and dangers associated with it.
When put in a tricky situation where they experience a tension of different needs and emotions, your child may be unsure of how to respond in an appropriate manner.
For example, when your child is playing unsupervised at a public playground where older children are present, one of these older children may approach your child to show him an image or video on their mobile device. The content makes your child feel uncomfortable, and it goes against his family values, but due to the strong need to fit in, your child may not walk away or inform you about the inappropriate content he was exposed to.
Another common scenario is where your child gets touched inappropriately by a trusted friend or relative, and they may feel shame, but also pleasure. The conflicting emotions they experience may leave them feeling confused and uncertain, and if they desire strongly to please or protect the adult who molested them, they may choose to remain silent.
As parents, you should address and validate your child’s developmental needs for peer acceptance, friendship, and altruism, while creating a safe, non-judgmental space for them to share their views or experiences at home. The key is to cultivate an environment in your home where children feel safe to freely share their thoughts with you, without a fear of punishment or a sense that certain topics are off-limits.
The best precaution for children at this age from the harmful intentions of both strangers and known relatives or friends, is the active involvement of their parents in their child’s social circles and online activity. Children can be taught to be assertive about their boundaries to both their peers and to strangers, and to walk away when these boundaries are crossed. Teach your child to recognise possible scenarios where another’s actions go against your family’s values, and how to respond appropriately in those instances.
For children’s online safety, guide your children on how to change their privacy settings to disallow strangers from communicating with them. Be sure to install apps to monitor their online activity, and block potentially harmful content and people. Do remember that these measures are temporary measures and safeguards. As your child’s cognitive abilities develop, you can wean them off these apps and teach them to practise discernment when befriending strangers online.
Tween years (10-12 years)
Tweens are much more capable than younger children in their cognitive abilities to judge and evaluate a potentially dangerous situation. They are also gaining more independence and are spending more time unsupervised by their parents, especially online. The need for peer acceptance is much greater, and tweens may find themselves saying “yes” to tricky situations out of their need for acceptance.
At this age, if you allow your child to play multiplayer games online such as Roblox or Minecraft, or use social messaging apps like WhatsApp, it’s inevitable for them to encounter strangers. These apps usually allow for direct messaging, even between strangers. It’s vital to teach your child to filter the personal information they share with strangers online, such as their address and handphone number, or even their full name.
Besides the disclosure of personal information, cyberbullying is also common. Teach your child to spot signs of cyberbullying, and the features that an app or game provides to protect us from such people, for example, the option to report and to block someone.
If your tween has his own mobile device, you can install the free app ScamShield, designed by Open Government Products in collaboration with the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), to protect against scam calls and SMSes from strangers. These filters may not work 100% of the time, but they do help in blocking most strangers from contacting your child. Regularly check in with your tween, to ensure they are interacting responsibly with technology. You may wish to check their social media account privacy settings, and ensure that they have accurately declared their age on these platforms, as safeguards have been put in place to protect minors.
Lastly, parents of tweens can set and enforce rules in the home and when interacting with others online or over a call. For example, if parents are leaving their tweens alone at home with no adult supervision, teach them to lock the doors and not to open it for anybody, no matter who they claim to be. If anyone were to message them through an online platform, teach them not to reveal any personal details such as who their parents are, where they live, or if there is anyone else at home.
Your child will benefit from ongoing discussions of risks, different scenarios they may find themselves in, and the healthy modelling of online and personal safety. As much as we try our best as parents to protect our children from the dangers both online and in the real world, there are many new forms of harm and danger that we can’t possibly prepare for. The best form of protection for our children is to develop a healthy, trusting relationship with us, so that they feel comfortable coming to us at any point in their lives when they feel uncertain about anything.
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