Safety Stuff

Today was the police station tour with Morgan's Daisy troop, plus another Daisy troop from school. Morgan was very excited about getting a behind the scenes look at what goes on at the police station. The tour took us through a lot of the highlights of the station, the dispatch area, the briefing room, the holding cells, and even the gym. The girls got to sit in a police car and got to see what all those cool things were in there. They even got to meet a detective, who is not in uniform, to understand that not all police officers wear uniforms.

After the tour, the girls went back to the meeting room where we had left our packed lunches and the girls got to watch the movie, The Safe Side, which was created by John Walsh and Julie Clark (of Baby Einstein fame). The movie was fun for the girls to watch, but also successful taught them about "Don't Knows" (people they don't know -- usually called strangers), "Kinda Knows" (like a soccer coach, school teacher, principal, friend's parent, etc), and "Safe Side adult" (someone your parents have cleared as being a trusted adult to take care of you. The video went through several situations where the kids needed Safe Side adults, like when answering a door or when a "Don't Know" approached them or when an adult came to them and asked them to help them find a lost kitten or something equally as tricky. That one really resonated with Morgan. I highly recommend the video (suitable for children ages 4 and older), not only for what it taught, but also for the discussion points that it provides for you and your child after watching it.

Case in point. As we were walking home from the tour, Morgan started talking about how she was ready to make her "safe side adult" list and that she wanted to put it on a board at home where we could always see it. We started discussing who potential people for our "safe side adult" list could be. She immediately started naming relatives. Her cousin, her aunt, her grandma and grandpa. I explained to her that in most cases, family members are going to be "safe side adults" but that in some families, it's not that way. I told her that luckily our family members are okay, but that we needed to also think of non family members since we really don't have much family around us. I asked her to think about someone that she thought we could trust to take care of her. She mentioned her teacher, but then remembered that we had talked about teachers being "Kinda Knows", so she wouldn't be one. I asked her about Miss Kristin (my good friend, also her girl scout leader). She said that Miss Kristin was a "Kinda Know", as we had discussed during the meeting. Which was true, to most of the girls in the troop, Kristin is a "Kinda Know". She also happens to be a very close family friend to us. I asked Morgan if maybe she could be one of our "safe side adults", to which she responded that she wasn't sure and we'd have to test her. When I questioned her on why we would need to test her, or even how we would test her, she told me that we needed to see if she could "handle her". LOL. I explained that Miss Kristin had "handled her" many times now, and that Daddy and I trusted her and I thought it would be okay to have her on our "safe side adult" list. She concurred.

We were almost home, when Morgan looked across the street and saw her preschool friend's Dad's truck. She said, "Is Nolan's Dad a Kinda Know?" I told her that he was. Then she asked, "Does that mean I can't go to his house anymore?" I told her that's not at all what it meant. That as long as she talks to ME and has mine or another safe side adult's permission, she could do things like hanging out with her friends at their house. But, she needed to check with us first. She said she understood.

It was a really good conversation starter. I had already talked to Morgan about our code word and how to use it, so now we just applied it to this new concept of "Don't Knows", "Kinda Knows" and "Safe Side adults". Anything I can do to empower her to know what to do to protect her and her brother, the better.