A stranger is a person whom one does not know or with whom one is not familiar with.

Today, in terms of child safety, that has changed, a stranger is not just that. A “stranger” can even be people the child already knows. For the purposes of your child safety we will group them together, both known and unknown and here is why.  If you tell your child that he/she should not allow a stranger touch his/her body,  what happens when uncle Michael who is a neighbour she greets every morning tries to touch her? Is he a stranger?

What happens when a family friend shows up to pick him or her from school without your knowledge? Is that family friend a stranger?
From the video, we saw last week, we saw how  a stranger acted so friendly and the children let down their guard. Imagine what happens when it is someone they are already familiar with.

Remember the saying about the person who knows you being the person who kills you? This is why every family should have their personal safety plan, password or code. Let your child know acceptable behaviours or codes of behaviour and rehearse with them from time to time. This will ensure it’s a part of their consciousness.

We have entered the popular “Mber” months, let’s be more Safety conscious.

So, while we pray, let’s still do the needful.

In security, access control is about restricting entry to a place. It could be for residential estates or certain work areas. However, relating this to the home front, access control could mean managing how strangers enter your home or how people gain access to your children. This means we need to put safety precautions in place, otherwise we would allow danger into our comfort zones.

Access control for families could be done through human or mechanical resources or a combination of both. This article would focus more on the human aspect. As a result of recent happenings in our society, children getting abducted from home and school, children being raped at home and other vices, it is now important to have a family safety plan. In my book, The Adventures of Muna, one of the chapters talked about handling strangers. It is important for parents to have and communicate family safety plans to their children.

As a parent, here are some things you can do to reduce stranger access to your kids:
1) Ensure you have good physical barriers -doors and windows – at home. Teach kids that they shouldn’t open the door until they know for certain who is there. If a stranger comes to the door and the kids have done a good job of locking it, then that door must be strong enough to withstand pressure otherwise the aim is defeated.
2) Teach your kids a family password that only authorised persons can use to pick them from school. This password should not be disclosed to outsiders. This means that your children will not follow a stranger who shows up to pick them from school if such a person cannot prove he’s familiar with the family code.
3) Teach them to scream and flail their arms when strangers attempt to get too close. Sometimes, a stranger might successfully get the kids or be in close proximity. However, if they know to scream and make a scene, other adults in the vicinity would know something is not right and move to save them.
4) Teach them not to give out personal details on social media or plan to meet a stranger from social media secretly. Educating them about predators and the tactics used will help them become cautious on social media.
5) Teach them phone numbers of parents and emergency numbers so they can reach out in emergencies. It is also important that they know what to say when they call these numbers in an emergency: their name, location and type of emergency. This will help adults know how to help them in any given situation.
6) Make your home friendly and encourage your kids not to keep secrets. Know who their friends are, know who they are chatting with, ask them to invite their friends for family events so you can get to know them. This makes it easy to trace unusual occurrences.
7) It is also important to control their internet usage and monitor sites visited regularly.

Keep keeping safe.