How to teach the concept of "stranger danger" ?

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How do you help children on the spectrum understand the concept of "stranger danger" ? One of my children will willingly go with anyone who "seems nice" and seems to trust adults unquestioningly just because they are adults. How can I make my child understand that not all adults are "safe" and that stranger adults are not "authority figures" or "trust-worthy" figures, but are just strangers who may not always have the right intentions ?

Also, what things can we teach a child to look out for in order to keep themselves safe at all times (especially during group times when they may not have a 1:1 aide at their side) ? I want my child to be cautious and safe, but without developing social anxiety or paranoia.

Thanks !

Hello ?! Are there no other parents or caregivers here who have discussed personal safety, awareness of their surroundings at all time, and how to stay away from strangers with their autistic offspring ?

My child tends to trust anyone over the age of 13 (I suppose teens appear as
adults to them) implicitly and I am very alarmed at this. Please advise how to help my kid understand that strangers - no matter how kind and "nice" they appear - are not to be trusted (unless maybe if they are in a police uniform). I struggle with this and would appreciate the advise. Thanks.

Sorry, I have been busy and have not been able to log in much, lately.

I wish I had a solution for you. We have this issue too, and I would have many problems right now with this if my son was unsupervised for any length of time.

I think it is part of the binary thinking in addition to just regular naiveté. Teaching socialization in a nuanced way is hard. We want him to talk to waitstaff and other people, so how can he decide who is safe and who is not? My only way of dealing with this, is he really does not want to speak to anyone and I have to prompt him when he needs to do so. If I started adding rules about why/when etc (which I tried), it does not stick nor is it understood. When my son was in public school, he would trust kids who were pranking him and it was a mess. I don't know how to transition them when they are that far in the weeds.

With kids with higher social IQ (maybe yours, but definitely not mine) you might be able to give him a flow chart that would help him how to decide b/c he is frankly probably not able to rely on gut feelings or anything that NTs would recognize as such.

Most kids get abducted by one of their own parents. Can't trust anyone.

When I was a child, what I remember being taught was:

Never go anywhere with anyone who wasn't my mom or dad or a close family member I knew very well (at school they taught us that people might pretend to be our distant relatives or friends of our parents, and that we shouldn't even go off with familiar adults like neighbours unless our parents told us this was going to happen or if the adult could tell us a secret code word that only our parent and us knew), or a uniformed policeman/paramedic;

Never accept candy/food or gifts like toys, comics, or money from a stranger for any reason (obviously Halloween is an exception and there were other exceptions, too....I guess it was good that I didn't generalize very well, because that meant the inconsistency in rules wasn't a problem for me -- for a child who would be confused by the inconsistency maybe you could add an exception like "unless it is Halloween or mom/dad is standing right beside you and tells you it is okay");

That people who might hurt you look the same as everyone else and will probably be really nice to you, and common tactics that predators use to trick/bribe children (like telling a child they want to show them something cool like a puppy or a toy in their car or some other place a short distance away), and how to respond (e.g. by saying, "no" "no thank you" or "i'm not allowed", or screaming "help" "stranger" or just screaming and/or running away if you were scared or the person tried to grab you, and finding a safe adult and telling them what happened);

How to respond to adults who are trying to get you to go with them and don't accept your "no" and pressure you by saying things like, "it will only take a minute" or "C'mon I don't bite" (repeat your refusal and get away from the person, and/or scream "help" or "stranger" or just scream -- and find a safe adult and tell them what happened);

The difference between good touching and bad touching, good secrets and bad secrets;

Who safe adults were, in the context of needing help or telling an adult about something bad that happened to you or about a stranger who tried to get you to go off alone with them.

Unless your child will follow your rules without question, I'm not sure you can avoid the risk of scaring them a little bit by giving them some explanation of what might happen to them if they are too trusting of strangers. But I'm not a parent, myself, and I don't know your individual child, so obviously my perspective is limited.

I think that The Berenstein Bears book (or the old video -- there is a new series, but I've never seen the new version so I can't comment on it) The Trouble With Strangers could be useful for some kids for explaining how the rules about not trusting strangers doesn't mean that everyone you meet wants to hurt you (as becoming scared of everyone after learning about "stranger danger" is a central part of the story).

You could also try giving concrete examples of "playing it safe" in other areas of life as analogies for why you have to treat every nice stranger as a potential bad person even though most nice people are really just nice people, but I'm not sure what you could use that wouldn't be too abstact. All I can think of is something like how you always wear a seatbelt in the car even though you may never get into an accident. Or how you always have to wear a bike helmet even though you may never fall off your bike and hit your head.

I've discussed it in every way possible with my son, even going so far as to show him scary internet stories.
All to no avail. When he was smaller I just had to keep an eye on him every second. Now he weighs about 100 pounds and wouldn't be so easy to pick up, so that's some protection for him. Still, he has absolutely no fear of anyone.

You know, I was kind of the same way. I only feared two things: my bullies and getting punished. That's it!

To make matter worse, I had massive wanderlust during ages 7 thru 17. So getting "picked up" only sounded like a fun change of scenery and/or an exciting adventure, rather than something to fear. Plus, my family spent quite bit of time telling me how I'm a bad kid and how they're tired of dealing with me. So I figured that even in the worst case, the "picker-uppers" would quickly get tired of me too, and leave me on the side of the road somewhere, after which, I'd use my incredibly good sense of direction to find my way home. (It really was good; when I was 8, I helped my whole family find a way out of a forest preserve with no trail markers.) I also "knew" not to go to the police, since I somehow got the idea they wouldn't believe my story and arrest me for running away, rather than help me.

Because of the binary thinking, I decided that I didn't want my son to learn to be afraid of everyone, and for a long while I essentially took on that responsibility for him.

When he got older and more independent, I started discussing situations, rather than people: what kinds of things people DO that make them untrustworthy. He did have a couple of close calls, but fortunately we live in a small town, and there was help out there for him that helped him learn to manage.

IMO, "stranger" is pretty meaningless. I did, however, teach him how to find people he could trust in emergency situations: someone behind the counter with a badge in a store, a police officer or security guard in a uniform with a walkie-talkie, etc.

First, stranger danger is overblown. Statistically speaking, the adults most likely to harm a child are that child's own parents. Kidnapping by strangers gets a lot of attention, but it's extremely rare - your child is far more likely to get killed in a car accident than get kidnapped by a stranger.

With that said, there are a couple related issues that are important safety skills to learn - first, staying either with your parent or where your parent left you rather than wandering off, and second, saying no to any adult (no matter how close) who is violating your boundaries.

The second is best taught by teaching your child that except for situations of absolute necessity (eg medical, cleaning, safety), he always has the right to refuse to be touched. Even if Grandma wants a hug, he can say no, and offer a different friendly gesture like a handshake or a wave instead. No matter who they are, if he doesn't want them touching him, he can say no, and if they pressure him, they're doing something wrong and he should get your help telling them to stop.

The first, I'd say just explain it to him clearly, and tell him exactly where he's supposed to be (eg 'I want you to stay at the school all day and not leave until I pick you up' or 'I want you to make sure that you can always look up and see me when we're going through this shopping mall'.) Then keep enforcing it until it sinks in.

But don't teach him to fear strangers. If he gets lost, they're more likely to help him get back to you than to hurt him.

Something else I'd like to add. It's also important to treat him---on average---nicer than most strangers would treat him. Otherwise you risk creating a major cognitive dissonance for the poor kid. Namely, the people he's "supposed to" fear are being nicer to him than the people who are supposed to protect him from danger. I dealt with that during my late childhood. I'm amazed how to manage to reconcile the confusing messages I got at a young, tender age of 8. Namely, strangers were generally respectful to me, while my own family threw constant vitriol my way over trivial matters, like a bad grade on a test.

Sometimes, the concept of "stranger danger" can be taken to the extreme as there was a case maybe about 10 years or so locally where a Boy Scout who got lost on a hiking trip took longer to be found. The reason was that the person was on the autism spectrum, and he stayed hidden because strangers were calling his name. Basically, he took the concept literally, believing that all strangers were dangerous.

That said, children should be taught about personal space and that they have a right to say "No" when it comes to hugging people they don't want to, even if that person is a relative.

Always tell your kid to ask you first before going home with anyone (and if you dont know the kid or the person go with your child to find out). Tell that personal space is a arms length and its ok to say no and step aside if someone cross that line.

if i had a child that was very (too) trusting, i would not try to instill mistrust or paranoia in them. i would accompany them on every step of their travels in some form or another until they got older and more discerning.
it is not a good thing in my mind to teach children that adults they do not know are not to be trusted or liked.
it is a good thing to make sure that you are aware of what they are doing always, and always able to spring to their defense from a short distance.

normal children do not need that or want it, they would resent it. but a very trusting naive child needs not to be let out into the open world on their own.
to kill their beauty of trust and naivety by replacing it with jaded suspicion is a travesty.

I'll echo what everyone else has said.

"Stranger danger" is greatly overblown, to the detriment of ALL children, not just autistic ones.

A child is most likely to be harmed by people he/she knows.

Don't teach fear of strangers. Teach the child to engage in/avoid certain behaviors.

Avoid:

Leaving a place, getting into a vehicle, or otherwise deviating from the agreed-upon plan with ANYONE other than the person you came there with, your caregiver, or the person with whom you made the plan. That also avoids "I was walking to Tommy's house, and then I saw a friendly stray dog and followed it, and now I'm 2.5 miles away beside a river and don't know how to get home."

Allowing ANYONE other than a parent, caregiver, or medical professional to see, touch, or otherwise deal with your private parts. If someone else tries, TELL IMMEDIATELY.

Approaching a vehicle closely enough to be grabbed. Also avoids approaching a vehicle closely enough to be accidentally run over.

Engage In:

Making sure parents/caregivers know where you are, where you are going, how you are getting there, that you arrived safely.

Making sure to tell parents/caregivers if someone says or does something that makes you uncomfortable.

Keeping more than arm's length distance between yourself and vehicles or other people unless they are parents, caregivers, or peers you are interacting with. Prevents all kinds of stuff: Grabbing, intrusion of personal space and attendant misconstructions, accidental injury.

Asking, whether verbally or with assisted communication, before going anywhere with anyone.

Kicking and screaming like all bloody hell if someone tries to force you to do something on the "AVOID" list.

Until they can do those things, they need to be watched closely by a parent, relative, teacher, or other caregiver in loco parentis.

Have you thought of teaching them "Stranger Safety" instead? I think I made up that term and its still a work in progress for me but it involves teaching them what kinds of people are ok to talk to and who they should look for if they need help. It also touches on some of the things mentioned in this thread in regards to not placing fear or paranoia about all people etc, but teaching them how to judge who is ok to talk to.