Child Safety 101: Don't Help People Look For Lost Puppies And Other Lessons We're Not Getting Right

"If a stranger approached and asked her to go with them, I don't think she would go," one mother told the Oprah Winfrey show confidently. "She knows she's not supposed to speak to strangers unless I'm with her and she's never, ever supposed to go anywhere with anyone she doesn't know." 

Right as this mother was talking to the camera crew, a man — a total stranger to the kid — asked her preschooler to help him look for a doggy, promising her $2 if she found him. Within moments, the girl walked off with the man, finding herself dangerously close to his car and out of her mother's reach. 

It could have been a disaster. Thankfully, because the man was in fact child safety expert Ken Wooden and not a real predator, the day ended with nothing more than a wake-up call. It wasn't just that particular mother who found herself reassessing how she handled personal safety that day — the experiment was repeated multiple times, and children went with Wooden within an average of 35 seconds.

Similar experiments have since been repeated on camera over and over again, for different television networks and even by YouTubers. Time and time again, the results are the same — young children, children whose parents are convinced that they know going somewhere with a stranger is bad news and they wouldn't do it, are lured away within mere seconds. 

If that wasn't shocking enough, it actually gets a whole lot worse. You may not be terribly surprised when preschoolers fall for predatory tricks, but surely college students know better? As it turns out, they don't. College students were eager to help Wooden get boxes into his trunk while he was wearing a sling, and promises of money or fame got their proverbial common-sense cards revoked real soon. Even young adults who were studying criminal justice agreed to get in a van and have their hands duct-taped together, based on nothing more than a home-printed business card and the promise of a chance to participate in reality TV!

Personal safety is something we get very wrong on a regular basis, then. If you are a parent worried about your kids, what should you teach them that might prevent them from getting into cars with strangers or helping them look for a lost puppy? And even more importantly, what should you do differently?

Can We Really Rely On Young Kids To Keep Themselves Safe?

What are we really doing when we tell our toddlers, preschoolers and early elementary kids to never go anywhere with strangers, or even just not to wander off while you're shopping or otherwise engaged? We're including them in the safety plan, we're assuming that they are able to protect themselves at least to some extent.

Gavin De Becker, safety expert and author of the best-selling books The Gift of Fear and Protecting the Gift, observes that he has regularly seen people leave their very small children much further away, often without even paying much attention to where they are, than they would ever leave their handbags. Of course we know that handbags can't protect themselves, but though your preschooler is a human being with budding independence, Wooden's experiments and similar ones that followed demonstrate, in the most shocking manner, that we can't expect them to protect themselves any more than your handbag could. 

READ Talk To Strangers: Why Old-Fashioned 'Stranger Danger' Lessons Get It Wrong

The answer, then? Of course you should teach your kid that going anywhere with strangers — out of the park, into their car, inside their home, to another shop, anywhere — is dangerous. However, you can never rely on them to actually follow that advice, not until they are much older and have had the right training. 

Personal Safety Lessons No Parent Can Afford To Skip

Teach The Lures

Ken Wooden is so convinced that the answer lies in teaching children — and anyone, for that matter — what lures predators employ to get people to come with them, that he has made this his life's work. If you want to want your kids to be in on the manipulations criminals use, you can do so very easily. Head over to YouTube and search for "child lures" and "luring demonstration", or simply "Ken Wooden", and a whole new world will open up to you and your children. 

If you want to go a step further, you can order his child safety curriculum from his company, Child Lures Protection. The lessons taught in these booklets are presented in a clear and concise manner, and they teach kids about bodily autonomy and the prevention of sexual abuse, as well as how to stay safe online, alongside information about lures used by strangers.

Having done both with my kids, I can assure you that offering these valuable lessons in personal safety don't scare your kids, but leave them feeling empowered. 

Teach Your Kids To Rely On Their Intuition

"Intuition" is a word that has earned somewhat of a bad reputation. Interestingly enough, it comes from the Latin root that means "to guard", and that's exactly what it does. Intuition, in essence, is nothing more than the cognitive process our brains rely on when there isn't time to make a logic-based decision. 

Another powerful way in which you can teach your children that their gut feelings matter is by asking them, regularly, how certain situations — both in daily life and in the media — made them feel, as well as sharing when someone creeps you out. Tell them, explicitly, that paying attention to their intuition isn't stupid, but can be life-saving.

What's sillier? Seeking refuge inside a store when someone on the street gives you goose bumps, waiting for the next elevator because the man already inside makes you frightened, telling your friends you'd rather not head out for that party with those people you don't really like, or... ignoring those very possibly justified instincts and doing things you know you shouldn't?

From a young age, you can also teach your children that their bodies are theirs and theirs alone. Ask yourself what signal you are really sending when you are telling your child to engage in a conversation with someone they don't like, or when you are asking them to give grandma a hug when they don't want to.

READ How to Effectively Communicate With Your Kids

Teach Your Kids How To Respond

For more comprehensive advice, I direct you to Gavin De Becker and Ken Wooden. Meanwhile, these tips can be useful:

• When a stranger is following you, head into a public place, like a store, and ask for help. 
• When a car pulls up and the driver asks you a question, take three giant steps back, scream, and run. 
• Remember: adults in need would ask other adults for help, not children. 
• If someone makes you feel scared or apprehensive, staying safe, and getting away, is more important than being polite. 
• When an adult tries to kidnap you, rather than just screaming, "this person is not my mom/dad — call 911" is among the things you should be yelling. If you don't do this, people may assume you are merely throwing a temper tantrum. 
• Kicking, biting, aiming for someone's testicles, sticking pencils up their eyes — when someone tries to kidnap you, whatever need to do is completely justified. 

And of course, don't let people duct-tape your hands together just because you want to be on TV. Checking someone's ID and calling their superior to verify who they are is fine, even if that person claims to be a law enforcement officer. Just don't do it while sitting in their car!