Stranger Danger Book Recommendations

http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Talk-Strangers-HipKidHop-Kevi/...

Its cool because it has a song that drives the point home.

The stranger danger campain was one of the worst ideas they ever came up with. Most of the time when a child is molested it is a family member or family friend or neighbor. Children have a difficult time figuring out who is a stranger.
Several years ago while I was living in So. Cali and boy, about 12, became lost in the mountains during a Boy Scout outing. Search parties combed the area for weeks and could not find the boy. Even though they were calling his name and asking him to come out they just could not find this child. They finally found him when he stood up from behind a bush along the trail. He told them he had been hiding from the search party because he didn't know any of the people and he had been taught about stranger danger. He finally stood up because he saw his uncle in the search party.

I worked in retail for years and I always said hi to the kids who came shopping with their parents. The would often look down scared to make eye contact, then Mom would explain that they had been talking about stranger danger. I simply explained to the parents that they should tell their kids that store employees are a safe person for them to talk to. If the child should become lost in a store they need to feel safe enough to go to an employee to ask for help.

Instead of scaring your children with the stranger danger nonsense talk about good touches and bad touches. You can also set up a password with your kids. Tell them that if anyone except Mom or Dad, Grandparents, certain neighbors or friends come to pick them up or offer a ride----that person has to know the password. When my kids were little I used the word popcorn because they often had a bowl of popcorn with family while watching a movie. So it was an easy thing for them to remember. If whoever is picking them up doesn't know the password they don't get into the car, or go with them.

personally, I HATE the berenstein bears book. It does NOT teach the proper things. primarily, if they can't talk to a stranger and they need help, then what?

It's okay to talk to strangers - adults do it all the time. this is one of the first, if not the first time you will tell your child one thing but do the opposite if this is what you choose to teach.
What should be taught is that if you have a funny feeling - act on it (this is age dependent of course).
Also, if they lose the adult they are with - find an adult woman with children and ask for help. statistically, this will make them almost as safe as if they were with you. I do not like the idea of finding a store employee because that is too hard for someone under 6 to figure out who is an employee and who isn't. the biggest lesson is to NOT ask a male for help, it must be a woman.
if someone is making them do something that feels wrong - scream "this is not my daddy (or mommy)."

the biggest factor in safety is the rule of NO SECRETS. reinforce this from day one and that is the best thing you can do to keep your children safe. as someone else noted, the biggest danger comes from people children know - if there are no secrets, the child cannot be groomed by a coach or teacher for pedophilia.

so, rather than a book, its more of practice when you're out and about and casual conversations whenever it makes sense to have them.

I never really found any books that taught these things which I think make kids much safer.

The Berenstein Bears is a good place to start for younger kids (3-6 years).

I don't know what books to recommend, but you are better off finding books/resources that help you teach your child to trust their gut, protect themselves, etc. Most crimes against children are perpetrated by people they KNOW or are familiar with.

They found her. She ran away.
LBC

I have a VERY friendly sensitive 7 year old. When we moved it was really hard to explain to him about not just walking up to our fence line (we have an acre lot) and talk to anyone. I did some research and found a great DVD called stranger safety http://www.amazon.com/Safe-Side-Stranger-Safety-People/dp... . It really comes across as funny (I thought it was funny:) and not scary but gets the point across. Talks about people that we know, kind of know and don't know and what the differences are. It's a DVD that was endorsed and also has John Walsh in it. You might could get it at your local library. I suggest you watch it first and then watch it with your child stopping it through out and talk about what is in your situation. Oh and my boys where 4 and 6 at the time we got the DVD. I think it's suitable for all ages though older kids my think it's goofy.
C.

This Great! This is very helpful to all parents in protecting their children. I think you can never underestimate the need to be aware of possible dangers with your kids. I am also so glad that last month, while reading an article on a blog, it mentioned that there was a service I could use to track my kids to be sure they were always in safe places. At the bottom it said I could follow the site anationofmoms and be entered for a drawing of 6 months free of the service. Not bad! http://anationofmoms.com/2011/08/protect-your-family-give...

I can't recommend any books but I can tell you what we've taught our kids. We're involved in lots of social group activites from renaissance faires to conventions to Star Wars fan clubs etc and so on. Our kids are always around "strangers" because there are often new people joining or people haven't been there for a while so they don't recognize them etc.
We taught them that most people are very nice but that there are some people that want to hurt you. Because you have never met a person yet you do not know if they are a good person or a bad person. You can't tell by just looking at them. We taught them that they are allowed to talk to strangers if they are with a grown up that they know. Our definition of "grown up" is a little loose in that it can mean some of the older kids/teens in our ren faire guild or in the fan club that we know we can trust and they're not far enough away from us that they can't yell for help if we need it. We tell them to never tell someone where they live, what their full name is (first name is OK) or any other information like that. This lets my social butterflies say hi to everyone or visit with the people in front of us in line at Disneyland etc and not put themselves in danger.
We've told them to never go anywhere with someone they do not know and not go to inside their house. If they get lost to not move, find someone that works at the place where we are or another mother with her kids.
I never ever went with the Stranger Danger route. It makes children terrified of their own shadows and doesn't teach them real skills to protect themselves.

I bought the book "Don't Talk to Strangers" by Christine Mehlaff last year from Scholastic Books. It's a really cute book and helps children differentiate between strangers and acquaintances, etc. After reading it, my daughter and I always have a good discussion about all the people that the little girl bear encounters during her day and how to decide who is someone she should trust.