ABC News Now- Beyond "Stranger Danger" - 6 Key Points for Teaching Child Safety

Kidpower North Carolina Center Director, Amy Tiemann, Ph.D., did an excellent interview on ABC News Now, Parenting with Ann Pleshette Murphy about how to teach children to be safe with strangers - and with people they know.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/stranger-danger-11653883

These key points from Kidpower are discussed during the show.

1. “Stranger danger” is a misleading concept. Children are emotionally safer if they understand that most people are good - this means that most strangers are good. The sad reality is that about 90% of abuse is perpetrated by people known and trusted by a family, school, or organization. Children need safety rules that they can follow that will work both for strangers and for people they know.

2. Kids need to know that they should not blindly obey an authority figure who is acting unsafely. Most two-year olds know how to say, “NO!” about anything they don't like, but they often lose that ability as they get older. Because they lack life experience, young children have to learn that some things are not a choice – but we never want them to lose that ability to say “NO” if they are unhappy or uncomfortable. We can honor their feelings, encourage them to tell others about how they feel, and still set limits when we need to.

3. Rather than teach kids not to talk to strangers, we need to teach them how to talk to strangers. The safety rules are different when children are with their adults and when they are on their own. When children are with you, give them chances to practice talking to strangers, such as buying something from a clerk at the store. You can explain that, "It is okay to talk to this nice man even though you don't know him, because we are together. If you are on your own, come over to me and check first." If a child gets lost in a store, she'll be safer if she knows how to ask for help, and whom to select (i.e. ask a person working at the counter; if you can't find someone else, ask a woman with children).

4. The rules are different in emergencies. A child should always check first with an adult before changing their plan or going somewhere with someone, but we want kids to know that they can get emergency help from a paramedic, fire fighter, or other emergency help. There have been instances of kids lost in the woods who hid from rescue parties because all they had been taught said "don't talk to strangers." Children who might get lost on a hike need to know to stay where they are or in the nearest safe place, to sit down if they get tired, and to look for a search party - especially if this stranger is calling their name.

5. Open the door to conversations about safety concerns. Listening is an essential safety strategy for parents. Having parents and other caring adults who will listen to a kid's concerns compassionately without lecturing or judging is so important. From time to time, ask your child, "Is there anything you've been wondering or worrying about that you have not told me?" Be prepared to really listen to the answer. Even if it seems silly to you, you want children to trust that you will be respectful of their concerns. Also, a child with a big problem might start with a small disclosure to see how parents will take it. For example, a child might say, "I don't like the way my cousin smells," when there is a serious abuse problem going on.

6. Parents sometimes think over-protection keeps kids safer, but we believe that skills for independence are skills for safety. Experience is a great teacher, and the goal of Kidpower training is to give kids the skills they need to experience the level of independence and exploration that is right for their current ability and environment.

Often, parents have not been taught a lot about child safety beyond the myths of "stranger danger" and "good touch/bad touch". Kidpower provides direct training to families through workshops, and also offers many free resources on our website as well as publications for sale. Here are links to our resource pages:

Stranger Safety/Kidnapping Prevention

Child Abuse Prevention

Bullying Prevention

In addition to her work with Kidpower, Amy is the creator of Mojo Mom and of the valuable parenting book: Courageous Parents, Confident Kids: Letting Go So You Both Can Grow.

Be Willing to Look like a Fool! - Great Advice for Fundraising and Teaching Alike

The best fund raising - and teaching - advice I've ever gotten came from a master fundraiser of a very conservative very official organization. This man always wore a three-piece suit and raised over 100 million dollars from individuals for his cause.

"You have to be willing," this very wise man told me, "to look like a fool!"

Of course, I do my best to be credible, but I've found that at some point you have to let go of appearances, take a leap of faith, and communicate your message with all your heart.

Fundraising is actually a form of teaching. When you are teaching, you are educating people about a skill or idea you think is important. When you are fundraising, you are educating people about why they should give to your cause.

Our third 2-minute vodcast takes this advice very much to heart, with PuppetPower both for teaching safety and for fundraising.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clWY8ifPPjM

This was filmed in my living room with a couple of lamps and no fancy equipment. I'm getting over a cold, and my voice sounds like it. My hair has a mind of its own. Patrick Heaviside is volunteering his time to film, edit, and produce these with some coaching from my brother, Ken, and you can probably tell that we are learning as we go.

PuppetPower came into being when we learned that people, especially young children, will often listen to puppets better than they listen to us. This two-minute Vodcast has Duck and Tiger showing why awareness is important - and has Duck reminding me to ask for help.

I hope you'll have as much fun watching it as we did creating it!

And I do hope you'll put Kidpower on your holiday giving list! Donating is easy. Just go to:
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=2854

THANK YOU!

Touch in Healthy Relationships

I just wrote a response to an e-mail request that I thought others might also find useful. I'm new to blogging and would really appreciate your thoughts, suggestions, and comments.

To have healthy relationships, you need to have good boundaries. To have good boundaries, you need to have an understanding about what is safe and what is not safe both emotionally and physically and to have skills to communicate with others about your boundaries.

Touch, teasing, and affection are often areas that can create problems in relationships. Here's a summary of our basic Kidpower rules.

Regardless of age, touch or games for play, teasing, and affection need to be:

• Safe
• The choice of each person
• Allowed by the adults in charge
• Not a secret
  

Touch for health and safety might not be a choice, but is never a secret.

Problems should not be secret. Touch should not have to be secret. Presents or games should not have to be secret.

If you have a safety problem, tell an adult you trust and keep telling until you get the help you need.

For children, the Kidpower safety rules about touching private areas are:
Your private areas are the parts of your body covered by a bathing suit. For play or teasing, other people should not touch your private areas nor should they ask you to touch their private areas nor should they show you movies or pictures about people touching private areas. For health or safety, such as if you’re sick, your parents or doctor might need to touch your private areas, but it is never a secret.

Knowing the rules is important, but people also need skills in communicating about boundaries. This is why our Kidpower teaching method emphasizes coaching our students to be successful in practicing the skills they need to keep themselves emotionally and physically safe.