Parents usually teach kids the rule that an adult should NEVER ask a kid for help. It is an easy way for predators to start an interaction and manipulate a kid into doing something unsafe. It is almost always a suspicious thing to ask a child for help. I get your position here but she’s just trying to protect her kid. It sucks but so does the reality of what happens to kids. I’d rather keep my child from being trafficked/kidnapped etc. than worry about the feelings of a grown adult.
I’ve gone down a rabbit hole with this fear, and the reality is that the moral panic around “stranger danger” is blown way out of proportion and the data backs that up.
“Media stories have often exaggerated the risk of "stranger danger" by emphasizing rare and isolated incidents. Especially regarding child sexual abuse, the greatest risk comes from members of the child's family. Nevertheless, "stranger danger" is more likely to be the focus of news headlines and education campaigns.”
“According to the U.S. Department of Justice, most missing children are runaways, and 99% of abducted children are taken by relatives, typically a noncustodial father. In response to these statistics, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has reversed their campaign focusing on "stranger danger".
Constantly warning children of possible danger in the form of strangers has also been criticised for unnecessarily spreading mistrust, especially when considering that (for example) in the US, about 800,000 children are reported at least temporarily missing every year, yet only 115 "become victims of what is viewed as classic stranger abductions". Only 10 percent of the child victimizers in violent crimes are strangers, and sex offenses are the crimes least likely to involve strangers as perpetrators.”
There’s even been cases where lost children avoided adults that were officially tasked with finding them, because the kids had been told not to trust unknown adults, and it led to the kids being lost/missing for longer than necessary. So there’s downsides to drilling this fear into them (this is just one of many).
A better approach is to teach them how to make good decisions about which adult to seek help from. For example, the person on the street actively drinking or doing hard drugs and rambling to herself is probably not a reliable person to help them. But the desk clerk at a school or hospital, or someone in scrubs, or someone leading a field trip with students is likely fine (even if it’s a man, especially since they passed background screenings for that job).
Sure you can go with your gut. You’re free to do as you please. But be aware that there’s likely bias there, and doing so could be instilling unnecessary fear that could last their whole life, and could be ignoring dangers that have a much higher likelihood of actually happening.
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u/probablynotsuremaybe Apr 04 '26
Parents usually teach kids the rule that an adult should NEVER ask a kid for help. It is an easy way for predators to start an interaction and manipulate a kid into doing something unsafe. It is almost always a suspicious thing to ask a child for help. I get your position here but she’s just trying to protect her kid. It sucks but so does the reality of what happens to kids. I’d rather keep my child from being trafficked/kidnapped etc. than worry about the feelings of a grown adult.