We obsessed about strangers when they were young, my friends warned me, “do not frighten them.” They have survived childhood and are now on the verge of college, and my same friends advise me to, “scare them to death.” Invincible is their middle name, bringing them up short without first hand experience is a challenge…

To maintain some sort of normalcy in my extreme response to stranger danger I instructed my children on the wisdom of safety in numbers. “Never agree to do anything with anyone unless there is at least one other person in the room.”  I’d command. One theatre director came under this mandate when my 11 year…

Parents teach their children elaborate passwords to keep them safe.  I found they made me feel safe for they empowered me to send strangers to pick up my children when I was caught late at the office.  Ah, what a terrible parent you may think!  It wasn’t as bad as it sounds but it was…

As my children started to toddle and understand what I was talking about I taught them about strangers.  Initially only one child fell into this category and I was advised by books written by experts, and well meaning friends not to frighten him.  They told me I didn’t want to scare him to the extent…

From the beginning I told my brother, who was visiting his month old nephew, that I was not going to plonk my children down in front of the television when I needed a babysitter.  I was determined not to hand my offspring over to something I could not interact with.  For some reason I thought…

The next stage in my child rearing adventure was to keep them safe from whacky strangers and other dangerous people who lurk in the world seeking to destroy childhood.  I’d not done such a good job at protecting them from physical injuries so I don’t know what made me think I’d fare better in this…

A little bit older but none the wiser my oldest son at eleven or so was practicing his baseball swings with a brutal looking steel bat.  He didn’t even play baseball but he had a bat and wanted to test his swing.  Well he managed to test it right into his brother’s face.  He whopped…

At six years old my youngest daughter is now able to inflict her own injuries upon herself.  She’s at home during a break from a play we are all involved in and is in her closet changing her clothes for probably the fifth or sixth time that day.  She would cry and shout at her…

It must have been the next Thanksgiving (I’m beginning to wonder if we get just a tad careless around holiday time or distracted by visitors?), that our next mishap occurred.  My youngest son was happily carrying the youngest around, she was all of ten months.  He was showing off his inherited, beefy, cowboy strength by…

I learned that children are very trusting of all inanimate things, especially furniture.  They climb on chairs set on tables, step stools set in recliners, and the shelves in a pantry, I discovered (not personally mind you), are natural stepping stones to forbidden goodies on the top shelf.  So it came as a surprise, but…