Fear and Safety

By Stacie

I guess I've been inspired by the news this week because I have another story I would like to focus on.

A couple of weeks ago in Sandy, Utah,  a 4 year-old girl and her mother were shopping in a local store where after wandering away from her mother the little girl was lured into the mens bathroom by a convicted child molester who committed unspeakable acts upon this girl. It took just moments to irretrievably damage this young girl and her family.

Luckily, the molester was caught in the act by the child's mother and as he tried to run away customers tackled him and held him till police arrived. This story has been reported on every step of the way since the incident which means that almost every night since, while watching the news, fear for my own child is instilled in me again and again. (A link to this story)

My own daughter is 4 years old and lately every time we leave the house this unfortunate story runs through my head. Abbie is a very friendly and energetic child which is wonderful but could get her into a lot of trouble. Even though I tell her to not talk to strangers I still think she's too friendly to heed my warnings.

One day after I watched an update on the news about the story, I tried reviewing with Abbie what she should do if a stranger approached her. I've always told her that if a stranger tried talking to her without mom or dad around she should scream and run. But I thought I'd test different scenarios with her.

Me: "Abbie, what if a man wanted you to help him find his puppy? Should you help him or run away?"
Abbie: "I should help him."
Me: "No, He's a stranger. If he needs help he can ask another adult. What should you do?"
Abbie: "Run and find."
Me: "And make as much noise as you can. Now, if a lady in the store wanted to show you something in the toy isle do you go with her?"
Abbie: "No, I yell for you and run."
Me: "Good job, yes."

This went on for a while with a warning to stay next to me while we are shopping and I thought that she understood but the next day while shopping in Walmart, she wandered off. I yelled for her and when she  popped out from behind a rack I thumbed her down in the cart and decided that scaring her would be the only way to keep her safe. I told her that if she wandered away from me, there are bad people out there that would not hesitate to grab her and take her home with them and hurt her.  I told her that I loved her and I want her to go home with me and asked her if she wanted to go home with bad people of with me, and she said, of course, me and I warned her to stay close then.

I feel bad scaring her like that and I didn't want to it to come to that but I didn't know what else to do. What am I suppose to do?

I've thought about testing her in a "scenario" and asking a stranger to talk to her while I watch her reaction from around the corner, but is that going to far? How do I keep her safe and keep the fear from seeping into every part of our lives? Is there really an answer to all of this because the world is not becoming safer, it's becoming scarier. It's vastly changed even since I was a kid and parents can't let their kids do the same things that I got to do as a kid. But how do we find that balance? Keep our kids safe and keep the fear at bay? Any suggestions or ways to calm fears?