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

Parenting can be as scary as it is wonderful — our kids, it seems, are constantly accompanied by potential danger. What if a predator asks your child to help him look for a "lost puppy" at the playground, what if the neighborhood pedophile wants to show your child and his mates his train collection, what if your child is staying home alone for five minutes only to have a potential kidnapper knock on the door? 

Thankfully, there's a simple answer, an answer in the form of a sentence that every single one of us has heard as kids: "Don't talk to strangers." 

As long as your child knows that sentence inside out, their safety will increase exponentially. It will give them the knowledge they need without scaring them with creepy stories because, after all, all you really have to say is that there are people out there who may want to hurt your child — but by not talking to them, your kids can avoid those people. Right? 

Not exactly. In fact, not at all.

"Don't talk to strangers" has become such a mainstay of parenting that questioning it seems silly. At first sight, "The Sentence" makes sense, after all, and it's what we were all taught when we were kids ourselves.

What Do We Really Mean By 'Don't Talk To Strangers'?

A stranger is anyone we don't know well, really. Is the post man a stranger? What about that lady at the supermarket checkout whom we frequently encounter? Into what category does the neighbor from down the street fall? And that nice man we had a chat with on the bus? Or the woman who stopped us in the street asking if we'd participate in a survey? 

You get the point — we talk to people we don't know well, to strangers, all the time. Not only do our kids see us talk to strangers on a daily basis, we may even ask them to interact with those very same strangers too. "Go on, say thank you," you may say to your child as a waiter gives them the drink they ordered. "Tell Mr Rodgers how old you are," you may encourage your child as you're chatting with an elderly neighbor. 

What's More...

Guess who is most likely to pose a danger to your child? Parents themselves statistically most often commit physical abuse against a child (no need to worry about that if you're not abusive), while sexual abuse is most often perpetrated by people who decidedly don't fall into the "stranger" category: step fathers, teachers, relatives, siblings, priests, sports' coaches, or friends of the family. 

The Kindness Of Strangers

Young children, children of the age where they aren't ready to be out and about in the world by themselves yet, generally don't need to be making the call of who is and isn't safe yet — you'll be with them, making those decisions on their behalf and your own. The only situation in which the whole "don't talk to strangers" spiel would apply at all, then, is one in which they suddenly find themselves alone.

READ What Every Parent Should Know About Pedophiles

If your child gets lost, what do you think will make them safer? Knowing whom to approach for help and how, or being so paralyzed by a fear of strangers that they stand there, in that big old world, looking scared, lost, and vulnerable? 

'Talk To Strangers!': A More Sensible Approach To Personal Safety

We make decisions about people in a split second all the time — is this person trustworthy or someone to be weary of? This internal risk-assessment process applies to all areas of life, whether we're judging whether we really want to buy a car from that place, whether we should go out on a date with that person, whether we want to let that new neighbor into our home, or whether we'd like to hire that applicant. 

What's Intuition?

First impressions are formed before we even realize it, and what's more, they very often prove to be absolutely correct. Interestingly enough, we don't apply logic to these internal mechanisms that are constantly at work within our brains. Instead, we use something else, something that has earned a bad reputation — intuition.

Our intuition tells us that we're scared of a person or situation, but not why. Your brain will process that part later. Intuition kept our ancestors safe when they were deciding whether attacking that bear was really a good idea, and it keeps us safe when we are deciding whether to trust a person we don't know yet. 

Where do we get our intuition from? Is it magic? No, not at all — our intuition, or gut feelings if you prefer that term — is nothing more than the accumulation of our experiences thus far. It's by talking to people that we learn what kinds of behavior are safe and what ones aren't. Without that experience, where would we be? 

Do you remember those artificial-intelligence programs on the web that learned to chat with people, based on an accumulation of what had been said to them to date? The more people chatted with those programs, the more likely it was that they'd answer in a sensible manner. Intuition that hasn't been tested, that hasn't been exposed to a whole heap of humans, is akin to an AI program that hasn't been interacted with — it will know nothing. 

This, then, is the single most powerful argument in favor of letting your kids talk to strangers. By interacting with many people, known and unknown, every day, your kids are loading their intuitive systems with information that can help them decide who's worthy of socializing with, and information that could even potentially save their lives one day. You can safely allow your kids to interact with strangers in your presence — people at shops, on the bus, at the post office, everywhere where you yourself talk to strangers. 

If Your Child Gets Lost

How about that situation in which your kid might find themselves lost in a public place, then? We've already concluded, I think, that a kid who looks lost and scared is more vulnerable to being approached by dangerous people than the child who confidently approaches people that meet predetermined characteristics. 

Whom should your child approach if they suddenly find themselves alone and need help, then? While many parents teach their kids to ask a police officer or even go to the nearest police station, let's recognize that it may take a long old while before your child finds a law enforcement employee. Indeed, young kids are liable to confuse anyone wearing a uniform, including security guards, for a police officer. 

READ Guide to Upbringing Healthy Children

The single best advice you can give your kids is to look for a mother with young children. Women are statistically more likely to care enough to want to help your child out, and they are also less likely to be a predator. What's more, women with children are around pretty much everywhere, so this advice is easy to follow. The person chosen by your child is much more likely to be safe than the person who picks out your lost child in the crowd, approaches them, and asks if they can help.

It's exactly through their experience of talking to a wide variety of people every day that your child's intuition will be filled with information that enables them to pick the right person in that situation. So go ahead, ditch the idea that talking to strangers is dangerous, and instead, teach your kids that it's people who scare them or creep them out that they should stay away from — whether those people are strangers or much closer.