We live in a culture of fear. Parents are bombarded by television reports, newspaper articles, and Internet postings of bad and occasionally tragic things happening to children. As a consequence, they are communicating to their children that the world is a fearful place and people whom they don't know are not to be trusted.
Parents will commonly say to me, "Well, you know how things are today . . " as though evil was invented just a few years ago. But bad people have always been with us. We just hear more about them because television is now on around the clock. The stories, as tragic as they are, are repeated incessantly with accompanying video. In reaction, parents are teaching their children to be afraid.
Despite the occasional horrific stories that we hear, there is no need for fear. There is, however, as there always has been, a need for prudence. Our children need to be taught how to use their judgment to evaluate risk, to size up situations and people for their problematic potential.
This is very different from starting at fear as the lowest common denominator. For example, I commonly hear from children whose parents have taught them that strangers are to be avoided. It is easy for them to make the connection between aviodance and fear--that which we are told to avoid must by its very nature be fearful.
I find that advice--to avoid strangers--to be wrong-headed. There is no way for us to meet people and expand our circle of friends without being open to those we don't yet know (i.e., strangers). That advice advocates avoiding people until we come to learn otherwise, thereby guaranteeing that we start from a baseline of fear.
If we teach children to avoid and fear strangers, we are teaching them to fear difference. Thus they come to learn to fear out of hand those of a different skin color, sexual orientation, religion, or ethnicity, thereby perpetuating unwarranted suspicion.
Instead of teaching fear, let's teach caution, care, judgment, and prudence. There's a huge and important difference between "Don't talk to strangers" and "As you speak with strangers, use your judgment to evaluate what kind of person they are." The message should not be "Kids, don't talk to strangers." Instead it should be "Don't go with strangers" and "Don't get into a car with strangers" and "Don't take anything from strangers if we are not with you."
Let's teach or kids that there is much to learn and gain from those we don't yet know or are not like us.