Parents urged to rethink 'stranger danger' caution

NEW YORK — Against a backdrop of highly publicized child abductions, some experts are urging parents to abandon the time-honored warning of "Don't talk to strangers" and instead work creatively with their children on a variety of skills for being safe but not scared.

"Our message is that children should recognize and avoid certain situations, rather than certain people," said Nancy McBride of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Federal statistics indicate there is no upsurge in child abductions and disappearances, though such cases often gain widespread attention, fueling anxiety among parents and others. Florida lawmakers, for instance, toughened that state's child-sex laws this spring following the separate abductions and slayings of two girls.

For parents, one of the groups trying to channel the anxiety into constructive child-safety approaches is the Jacob Wetterling Foundation, founded by a Minnesota couple whose 11-year-son was abducted in 1989 and has not been seen since.

The foundation's executive director, Nancy Sabin, said the Stranger/Danger mantra "is far overrated" because most abductors and abusers are known to the parent or child.

"More than 80 percent of the time, the abductor is someone in the neighborhood," she said. "The myth is that it's a guy in a trenchcoat unknown to the child, but in fact it's rarely a total stranger. . . . Most people who are going to help a kid are strangers."

Sabin advised parents to practice "what if" scenarios with their children to give them experience making decisions that might help them escape danger. What would the child do if suddenly separated from a parent at a mall? How to respond if, while playing games in a video arcade, an adult man approaches?

"Make it nonthreatening," Sabin said. "You don't want to make a child afraid. If any of us are afraid, you can't think clearly."

McBride said children should be tutored to identify adults, even if strangers, who might be able to help them — a sales clerk, for example, or virtually any mother with children of her own. Blanket fear of unfamiliar adults might actually be harmful, McBride said, citing the recent case of Brennan Hawkins, the 11-year-old boy lost in Utah's Uinta Mountains who hid from rescue workers because they were strangers.

McBride said children should be taught to extricate themselves as swiftly as possible from a situation that frightens or discomforts them, even if that entails brusque behavior.

"That's going to be tough for some parents," she said. "You're giving your children permission to be impolite if their safety is at stake."