Stranger danger/road safety

[Mulanmum]

OK I know this isn't really a one-child issue but I feel more comfortable posting here - don't run the risk of someone replying "stop being so precious, I've got 9 kids and I just left them by the roadside for an hour and they learned about road safety the hard way" .

DD's nursery are having a police officer visit to talk about road safety/stranger danger. I think this is a good idea but with, regard to the stranger danger, I'd like to be present to see how he puts this across so I can discuss it with her later. You know what it's like when they're so young - can't always articulate if something is on their minds.

Has your child had this kind of talk at nursery/school? How was it conveyed to them and how did they feel about it?

I;m not sure I'd insist on being present but I would probably want to know how it is being put across.

IMO, policemen/women are sometimes the worst people to talk to children about this as they will have a very skewed view of this. They see all the bad stuff so will naturally be more inclined to think it is more common than it is. However I'm sure that the police officer coming to speaka] to the children will have been appropriately trained to give good advice without scaring the children too much.

I haven't had this happen to ds yet but i think I'd have a chat with the school/nursery and ask if there was any information they could give me about what would be said. I'd say I was really interested in what was being said so I could reinforce it at home rather than suggest that I was worried about how the topic would be presented.

When I was teaching in the UK we had this type of thing once a year.

The policeman comes in the children go all weak at the knees (everyone loves a Policeman) and she or he chats to them about saying no to strangers and how to cross the road. We also got railway and electicity danger - but I think this was when they were older.

At the end he gave lots of things to the children to take home - leaflets, stickers so they can tell their parents all about it and to remember the talk.

If I were you, I would ask beforehand what to expect, your dds teacher will understand. But... to be honest - it is all stuff 99.9% of parents naturally say anyway - just coming from a man or lady in uniform gives your words authority !

We had this sort of talk at Brownies (so slightly older children). The police officer was very obviously being careful not to scare the children but mentioned sensible things they could do to keep themselves safe - such as, if you get separated from your mother in the street, just stay put so that she can come and find you, rather than wandering off. Anyway, the Brownies loved it, asked lots of questions and came away with a handful of stickers and leaflets.

DD had this visit at nursery completely out of the blue - it was only when she came home with a policewoman puppet with 'stranger danger' on the back that I knew about it. Actually, not true, I was told when I picked her up that they'd had someone from the police in to talk to them, I was just a bit surprised to see 'stranger danger' on this puppet, as I thought that approach was rather outmoded.

Didn't do it at the time, but have just googled 'stranger danger' and our local police force and got this which I guess covers the rough approach.

It did give me the impetus to cover a few extra things with DD - who she should approach if she got separated from us in a shopping centre or similar, and how she should never go ANYWHERE with ANYONE without telling the person looking after her at the time. I tested her after the talk at nursery: "DD, if we were in the park, and you were playing, and your best friend's mummy came by and asked you to go to her house, what would you do?" "Go home with her!" Of course - not a stranger.

So I think a little fine tuning and parental input is needed - but teafortwo is quite right, it makes much more impact when delivered by a proper Authority Figure (no mimsy inconsistent parents, thank you very much)!