I was sitting alone on a bench by a duck pond, our ignored lunch by my side, while my two-year old daughter Fern, a dozen yards away, slowly fed her rice cake to an indulgent Canada goose. I suppose I must have looked like a safe parent, because just then a chummy 10-year old girl plopped down on the bench right next to me and said, “Hey, goose! Goose! Goosie!”
“Are you calling me a goose?” I asked. My brand of droll humor only works with kids up to roughly fifth grade, so I have to take every opportunity I get. The girl assured me that she’d been referring to the actual bird, so I visibly sighed and said, “Well, good, because it wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah, all my friends call me goose. Or partridge.”
The girl laughed and said “Bye, goose!” before jumping off the bench to examine the actual geese, and thereby ended a perfectly safe and even mildly entertaining conversation with a stranger. The girl’s mom, strolling up the requisite minute behind, smiled at me benevolently.
Thus, I taught Fern, who had watched the whole exchange, that it’s just fine to — Talk to Strangers.
Oddly, I think I did the right thing, although I can’t say exactly why. The thought of preventing my daughter from approaching other adults — members of our community, after all — turns my stomach a little. I’ve witnessed enough kids who are either inherently shy or been taught stranger fear that I know that a prohibitive strategy is not for me. But, obviously, I don’t want Fern to put her full faith in people she’s just met, either.
So my dilemma is how to take a black-and-white rule I dislike — “Don’t talk to strangers!” — and out of it, invent a commonsense approach through a treacherously gray area. I can see already how challenging that will be, but if I succeed, I will have taught Fern a valuable skill: how to read people and situations to intuit how safe they are.
by Doodaddy
Photo graciously provided by Lab2112 , through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved
5 responses so far ↓
Chris // Jul 11, 2008 at 5:55 am
Doodaddy, have you read Protecting the Gift? He makes the very same point that you have here: that by inculcating our children with the “stranger danger” message, we are not allowing them the opportunity to develop their intuition, leaving them even more vulnerable. The truth is, the vast majority of people on this planet are not going to harm our children. “Don’t talk to strangers” thinking is xenophobic and anti-communitarian. I think there are like 60 truly “stranger kidnappings” a year in the US (please correct me if I’m wrong). Abuse usually happens at home or in the homes of trusted family or friends, not at the hands of strangers. By teaching kids not to talk to strangers, we are not only robbing them of the opportunity to develop their intuition about people they’ve never met, but also an important safety net. Say your child was lost and *needed* the help of strangers, but having been taught not to talk to them, did not seek help? Even as a child, I understood this conundrum–I didn’t get how I could ever make new friends if I never talked to strangers.
I encourage my kids to talk to strangers. When my daughter (now 5), tells me she’s uncomfortable doing so, we explore why. I try to respect her fears, but also help her dispel them. For example, she used to be afraid of the owner of a sushi shop we frequent. It took a bit of prying on my part, but I finally got from her that she was afraid of him because he “talks funny.” Well, the man’s from Korea and has an accent. Once I understood her fear, we were able to talk about it and now she gets that some people speak differently from us because they grew up speaking another language besides English. And now she’s always happy to chat with Mr. Lee.
Rob // Jul 11, 2008 at 6:48 am
Great post and great comment @chris.
My own intuition was to respond with similar comments, although I have not read Protecting The Gift (I’ve been sitting on it for years). I agree with the concept of helping children to develop their own skills with regards to judgment and intuition, I feel the need to be a bit more conscientious about it though.
Thanks for the insight.
Doodaddy // Jul 11, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Hey, Chris,
You know, I haven’t read that book, and quite intentionally. From reading reviews and summaries, I think it would fall into the same category for me as those pregnancy books that dwell on all the things that go wrong, and I really object to those. One review (of the audiobook version) said “You listen, frozen in revulsion, as it describes horrific violence against children.” Not having read the book, I can’t say for sure, but it definitely sounds over the line of decency to me.
It’s a shame, too, because it sounds like he’s got good instincts about human interactions.
Chris // Jul 12, 2008 at 7:47 am
I would not agree that Protecting the Gift describes horrific violence against children. The author does include illustrative stories, but the descriptions are not graphic and I didn’t find the stories inclusion egregious or crossing the line of decency. In fact, the book is mostly full of reassurance and cites numerous statistics to counter mainstream media’s obsession with violence against children. I read parts of What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and wanted to throw it across the room for the very reasons you stated. I definitely wouldn’t put Protecting the Gift in the same category.
I have read over a dozen parenting books and the only three I highly recommend are Protecting the Gift, Hold On To Your Kids (though Neufeld is terribly repetitive), and Liberated Parents, Liberated Children. What I like about all three is that they encourage parents to trust their deepest instincts, not the advice of experts.
Doodaddy » Talk to Strangers // Jul 12, 2008 at 4:19 pm
[…] The full story, including a riveting conversation between me, a 10-year old girl, and a goose, is posted at GNM Parents: click here. […]
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