Stranger Danger?

During the 1980s ABC would show a made-for-TV movie about some issue that was previously not talked about in polite society. The showing would become a national cause. People would organize. Sometimes new laws would be passed. The entire nation suddenly had a new fear. This happened at least a half dozen times but the one that started it was about a boy who was kidnapped and killed. Once this movie came out, every parent in America was convinced that child molesters were watching their child, just waiting for the parents to drop their guard for a moment.

Parents were given all sorts of warnings. There were special kits that parents were to put together to help identify their child once he was snatched. It didn't matter if the process scared the child to death. This was a good thing since it would make the children more wary around strangers.

It was understood that this would always be a stranger and that the odds of this happening were fairly high.

In reality, child molesters are almost always known to the child. He might be a neighbor or a cousin or mom's new boyfriend. He might be a scoutmaster. He is almost never a complete stranger.

Never the less, children were taught to be very scared of strangers.

This has two negative effects. One is that the children are scared of the wrong people. The other reason is that children are scared of strangers for no good reason.

Which brings us to the missing scout. After disappearing from a scout camp the boy was found days later. Why did the search take so long? In part it was because the Sheriff made a bad assumption. He assumed that children always follow the path of least resistance so the boy must have gone downhill. In fact, he went uphill.

A bigger problem is that the boy had been taught to fear strangers.

“When an ATV or horse came by, he got off the trail. When they left, he got back on the trail,” Jody Hawkins said. “His biggest fear, he told me, was that someone would steal him.”

Granted the boy is described as "immature and a little slow, but not mentally disabled" but the parents clearly gave their son the wrong impression about people.

Update: Here are someone else's thoughts on talking to strangers.