Hey, there! Log in / Register

Sometimes, it's OK to talk to a stranger

Liz Dolin recounts her time at the JP Licks in West Roxbury last night with the 3-year-old kid of some woman she'd never met. She reports both had a grand time.

It would have been all too easy for J's mom to admonish her child to not bother the solitary woman eating her ice cream that evening. Instead, she encouraged her child to interact with a stranger, albeit under her watchful eye.

We are teaching our children, heck we even behave ourselves, that strangers are not to be trusted. On a Saturday evening, a child was taught to talk to a stranger and that it would be okay

Neighborhoods: 
Topics: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

exactly.

up
Voting closed 0

It's more effective and realistic to teach and model good boundaries and good reading of social cues rather than just "don't talk to any strangers at all ever." Everyone starts out as a stranger.

up
Voting closed 0

Tell that to the kid in New York

up
Voting closed 0

There are millions of kids in the naked city .... which one of them?

up
Voting closed 0

Lieby Kletzky was just looking for help from a stranger to find his way to where his parents were waiting for him to arrive from a day camp. It was the first day they were going to let him "walk home" a few blocks without them. They walked the route with him a few times, then on that day he missed a turn and stopped to ask someone for help. That guy ended up taking him home, tying him up at some point, and when he realized people were searching for the boy he smothered him with a towel and hacked up the body to try and dispose of it before being caught.

Not exactly the same situation as the original story here, but an ill-timed example of how talking to strangers can go wrong quickly. Kids aren't exactly the best at sussing out who they can and can't trust, or what level of action they should agree to based on that trust.

Does the kid in the ice cream shop understand that the only reason it was okay to talk to a stranger was because the conversation was banal and the stranger wasn't offering them anything or suggesting they leave together? Does the kid know that the only reason it was okay was because Mom was standing right there too?

up
Voting closed 0

instead of teaching kids "don't talk to strangers" and teaching them to be paranoid and awkward when they're out in public, it's better to teach them how to set good boundaries, where to seek help if they do need it, etc. Offenders look for vulnerable kids, but most offenders are cowards, and most are going to stop as soon as the kid assertively says "I'm not comfortable giving that information to soemone I just met" or something.

(And really, yes, sad about this kid, but we have to realize that this sort of thing is extremely rare. As the article up above says, kids are much much much more likely to be killed in a car than by a stranger. So why would you let your kid go in a car but not walk somewhere with appropriate preparation?)

up
Voting closed 0

That kid was alone. This kid was within sight of his parent.

I've talked about this sort of thing with my daughter. I've reinforced her intuition that, yep, some folks on the T *are* creepy when they pay attention to you and some are just fine. And that you should be polite but you don't need to indulge the crazy.

We've also talked about who to go to if you're alone and need help.

up
Voting closed 0

A crazy old man at Jamaica Pond once told me "A stranger is a friend you haven't met yet."

up
Voting closed 0

Show us on the doll where the old man touched you...

up
Voting closed 0

I always thought that a properly supervised evening on Halloween is a good occasion to teach kids that not all strangers are evil creatures. But I know of at least one city school that sponsors an indoor Halloween in the school's auditorium as an alternative to actually being on the street.

It's too bad. They teach their kids fear and anxiety. They communicate the message that a stranger is automatically bad until proven good.

I'm glad I'm not a kid today. Otherwise I fear I would be learning that everything in life is in short supply, that competition and the law of the jungle are what controls society, that life is a constant series of problems, chores, non-stop electronically created noise, that there are no boundaries, that conversation (instead of texting) is archaic and useless, and would have to deal with a constant barrage of messages to buy things, eat crappy food and constantly do something, anything that is distracting.

To any parent who manages to negotiate through the non-stop attack of 24/7, hit and run culture you're a hero.

up
Voting closed 0

I've become really interested in it lately, for exactly the reasons you mention. Technology is inevitable, but it means we need to focus especially hard on kids learning how to enjoy stillness, play creatively and socially with others without any pre-fab toys, do things with their hands, etc.

up
Voting closed 0