Child Safety and Stranger Danger
Child Safety – How we can keep children safe but not scared!
Have you recently had a conversation with your child/ren about child safety and stranger danger?
There are some wonderful resources on the web including the Daniel Morcombe Foundation and Child Abuse Prevention and Education Australia.
There is also some useful information from the Child Abuse Prevention and Education Australia. The following points are adapted from their webpage.
Having a conversation with your children around strangers or people they do not know
Strangers are people who aren’t part of our safety network and that they aren’t our friends. We don’t know them, haven’t met them before with our parents than they aren’t our friends. We don’t go with them because they aren’t our friends.
Scenario or role play with questions like –
WHAT COULD KIDS DO IF?
- Someone they don’t know or isn’t their safety person asks them to go with them in their car. The answer might be yelling NO, runaway and find their safe adult/parent. Get them to act it out.
- Reinforce that they are never in trouble if they say ‘NO’ to an adult or someone older that they don’t know or if they ever feel unsafe.
- Safe adults won’t make them feel unsafe or hurt them and won’t ask them to do something like leave their school, playground and won’t offer free things or give you something without talking to your parents first.
Please reach out if you need support or have any questions.
Child Safe advocate
Bridgette McCann