What Do I Say to My Children?

Set The Tone
Find a time to connect with your children about this topic with no other distractions. Maintain a warm and reassuring tone as your children may pick up on your anxieties and fears. For adults and children alike, it is hard to learn anything new when fear becomes the driving force behind the information. Children should be able to walk around smart and not scared.

Reassure Your Children
One good way to frame the conversation is to remind your child of all of the important people involved in his/her life. You could begin by saying something like, “You have so many people who love you and want you to grow up happy, healthy and safe. It is important that when anything happens that is scary or confusing that we always go back to those trusted adults and tell someone there is something wrong.” After you have defined that safety net, you can begin talking about personal body safety. You may want to try something like, “I love you and want to make sure you are safe.  One way to stay safe is to be aware of things or people who may be dangerous. We have a neighbor who has made bad choices in his past which hurt other people. We hope that s/he is making good choices now, but because we can’t be sure we want to make sure that you follow our new family rules about this person.”

Create Easy to Understand Guidelines
When you talk to your children about fire safety, the focus is not on what a burn feels like, but is on stop-drop-and roll; manageable steps that a child can take. In the same way, when talking about personal safety there is not a need to get into details about the specific crimes, but to focus on the manageable steps you have decided will work best for your family.

Some topics to include in your discussion:

• Review safety tips and common lures used by offenders.
• Explain the importance of avoiding dangerous situations in addition to teaching how to avoid this particular person.
• Explain that they should never accept a ride, gift, or invitation from any adult without their parent’s permission.
• Explain that they should never accept a ride, gift, or invitation from this offender.
• Explain that they should never go into the home or yard of the offender.
• “What If” games are a great tool.

Balance the Known Threat with Unknown
Teaching your children to only be aware of the behavior of this one individual does them a great disservice. It is synonymous to teaching your children to only buckle up their seatbelt only when you are traveling on the freeway. Just as children should buckle up regardless of the road, they should be taught to tell the adult taking care of them if anyone tries to hurt them. If the adult taking care of them is the problem, they should tell one of their other trusted adults. Child abuse is almost always perpetrated by someone who is known to the child such as a family member or friend. Remind your child that if anyone tricks them into a confusing touch, that it is not their fault and they should come to you for help. Use the known concern of having a sex offender in your community as a way to springboard other conversations about personal safety.

Keep the Door Open for More Questions
Just like any kind of safety that you teach your children, ongoing conversations are a healthy way of allowing the child to know you are willing to talk about the subject. Personal safety talks also can get more detailed and specific as your child or teen gets older. The important piece is to make sure that your child or teen can come to you with questions about anything that they are confused or worried about. Your child may not have any questions at first, but as they hear information about the offender from friends at school or on television they may need to talk about their fears. By making safety discussions a series of connecting conversations instead of one big talk it allows your child or teen to process situations and thoughts as they arise.