Tony crawled into bed with me this morning as Angelo was getting into work. He wanted to talk about the neighbor lady he and I spoke with last evening. He proclaimed her his new best friend and told me he wanted to go over to her house and “play with the little boy that comes over sometimes.”
This got us started talking about stranger danger. Tony is not afraid of people, and that scares me. Several times we have talked about what to do with strangers, but I’m afraid his natural friendliness and curiosity will override what I’ve tried so hard to instill in him. So this morning I asked him what he would do if a stranger came up to him and asked him, “Little boy come with me.” Tony declared he would run into the house. This was good, but… “Little boy, I lost my puppy. Can you help me look for him?”
Tony didn’t answer that one. He looked at me with concern in his face.
”Well,” I asked him. “What would you do?”
“I don’t know, Mommy,” he responded. “There’s a puppy lost. He might get hit by a car!”
Thus began an earnest discussion about how bad people often use this to get kids to follow them.
I finally told Tony, and will continue to tell him over and over for the next few days, that if a person he doesn’t know calls him “Little Boy” or something other than his given name or commonly used nickname, than Tony was to be suspicious. We came up with a question Tony was to ask the stranger, and if the stranger did not give the full and complete answer, then Tony was to shout “NO” and run to the house, or to a trusted adult and explain what happened.
In the past Tony and I have practiced and even role played with willing security guards at local malls what to do if Tony got lost. He knows what he has to say and the ID tag he has to show. Role playing works well with my son and believe me we are going to be role playing this until he can do it without hesitation.
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