Lately I've been trying to talk to Noah about what to do if he were to get separated from me in a public place. This subject is delicate and it's harder than I thought it would be. How do you explain to an innocent little boy that there are evil, horrible people in the world who would hurt him and take him from his family without thinking a second thought about it? How do you equip him for a scenario where he finds himself alone in a crowd? How do you explain the gravity of the consequences of the wrong choices in these situations without scaring the kid for life?
I made up a song that has his full name and his address in it. We sang it over and over and over and over and over until he had it down. Now when I ask him, "Who are you?" he sings the song. Next up will be the task of having him memorize my phone number. I've made sure he knows my name. I remember being a very little kid lost in an airport. I knew all the right things to do. I went up to a desk and told the employee that I was lost. She asked me who I was there with. I told her I was with my Grandad. She asked what his name was so she could page him over the loud speaker. I told her again, matter-of-factly "His name is Grandad." They ended up paging "Grandad" over the airport intercom and he came running. Paging "Mom" would probably prove to be more difficult. There weren't as many bad people in the world back then either.
I've been kidnapped. Thank goodness they didn't get very far - my Mama was hot on their trail. As a young teen, I had a strange man in wal-mart try to get me to come with him. These things happen and I just want them to be prepared.
So how do you address this topic? I mean the obvious "Hang on to your kids in the store!" thing is great, but the reality is, there are bad people out there; sneeky, bad people and I don't want my kid's face on a milk carton. What do you think?
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