Teaching children safety without frightening them

This page exists because the obvious approach fails in both directions. Telling children nothing leaves them unprepared and, worse, leaves them to construct an explanation from fragments, and the version they build is nearly always more frightening than the truth. Telling them everything, in adult terms, gives them a burden they cannot carry.

The workable middle is narrower than it sounds and it is mostly about competence. A child who knows exactly what to do is less frightened, not more.

The principle

Teach the action, not the threat.

"If there is ever a fire, we all go out of the front door and stand by the lamp post" is a complete, useful, unfrightening instruction. It requires no explanation of what a fire does to a house, and a five year old can hold it.

Fear comes from helplessness. A child who has a job to do, and has practised it, has something to hold onto in a situation where the adults are visibly worried.

Calm is contagious and so is the opposite. Children read the adults far more than the words. How you say it matters more than what you say, and a plan delivered matter-of-factly reads as ordinary.

Match the answer to the question that was asked, and stop there. Children ask for exactly as much as they can handle, and volunteering more is where it goes wrong.

One instruction, no branches

The single most important design rule for anything you teach a child.

No decisions. No if-this-then-that. No judgement calls.

An adult plan can have branches. A child's version must be a single sentence with one action.

Do not build a plan that requires a child to decide. Under stress an adult struggles with that, and a child will freeze on the branch.

Waiting is a valid instruction and often the best one. "Stay there and wait for us" is easy to hold, easy to do, and it makes them findable, which is what matters most.

Practise it as an ordinary thing

Rehearsed actions are recalled under stress. Things heard once are not.

• Walk to the meeting point. More than once, in daylight, as part of a normal walk. "That's our lamp post" said cheerfully three times is the whole lesson.
• Do the fire drill. Once or twice a year, briskly and without drama, the same way school does it. School drills work precisely because they are boring.
• Let them dial. Practise ringing 999 on a phone that is not connected, and saying their name, what has happened and where they are. Being able to say the address is the single most useful thing.
• Learn the address and one phone number by heart, and put the same information on a card in the school bag. See meeting points and a household plan.
• Make it matter-of-fact. No solemn sit-down. A drill treated as ordinary is remembered as ordinary.

Praise the doing. "You got to the lamp post really quickly" is the reinforcement that makes it stick.

What to teach at what age

Rough, and every child is different. Follow the child rather than the number.

Under five:

• Their full name, and the names of their grown-ups.
• Where the meeting point is, as a place they walk to.
• That the smoke alarm noise means go outside with a grown-up.
• Not to touch matches, medicines, or anything under the sink.

Five to eight:

• Home address, and one phone number learned by heart.
• How to ring 999, and what to say. That it is the right thing to do and nobody will be cross.
• The fire route out, both ways.
• Where the meeting point is and to wait there.
• Not to open the door to anybody when alone.
• Who is allowed to collect them.

Eight to eleven:

• The household card, carried.
• How to find and use a torch, and where it lives.
• Basic first aid: pressure on a bleed, cool water on a burn, get an adult.
• How to turn the water off, shown physically at the stopcock.
• The route to the neighbour you have agreed on, and to school.
• What to do if they come home and nobody is there.

Eleven and over:

• The full household plan, including the out-of-area contact.
• A real first aid course, which is the highest-value thing on this whole page. See CPR and choking.
• How to give a location, including a grid reference or what3words. See grid references.
• Looking after a younger sibling, in outline, without making it their responsibility.
• The children's tier of this app, which is written for them directly. See the card.

Answering the hard questions

Answer honestly, at the level asked, and stop.

"Are we going to be alright?" from a six year old is not a request for a risk assessment. "Yes. We know what to do and I'm going to look after you" is honest and sufficient.

• Do not promise what you cannot promise. "Nothing bad will ever happen" is a promise that gets broken and takes your credibility with it. "Whatever happens, we will be together and I will look after you" is true and is the thing they are actually asking.
• Say "I don't know" when you do not know, and add what you are doing about it. Children handle uncertainty far better than they handle sensing they are being lied to.
• Let them ask again. They will process it in pieces over days, and the same question returning is normal.
• Watch for the question behind the question. "What happens to the dog?" is usually about whether things they love are safe, and answering the dog answers the child.
• Do not overshare your own fear. Being honest that you are worried is fine. Handing them the worry is not.

Strangers, and the better version of that lesson

The traditional lesson is poorly targeted and worth replacing.

"Stranger danger" is weak because most harm to children comes from somebody known to them, because a frightened lost child needs to approach a stranger to get help, and because children apply it to the wrong people.

Teach instead:

• Who to ask for help, positively framed: somebody working there with a badge, somebody behind a till, a police officer, or a woman with children. Being able to choose a helper is far more useful than a general suspicion.
• The rule about going with people: they never go anywhere with anybody, known or not, without checking with you first. That covers the real risk rather than the imagined one.
• Their body is theirs, and no adult should ask them to keep a secret from you. This is the single most protective thing you can teach and it has nothing to do with strangers.
• They can always tell you anything, and they will not be in trouble for telling. Say this often and mean it, because a child who fears being told off will not report the thing that matters.
• Trust the feeling. If something feels wrong, they are allowed to leave, shout, or refuse, even to an adult, even to somebody they know.

What frightens children

Worth knowing so you can avoid the avoidable.

• Overheard adult conversations, especially fragments. They will construct the rest and the construction is worse.
• Rolling news coverage. Repeated footage of the same event is understood by young children as the event happening repeatedly. Turn it off, or watch it once, deliberately, and talk about it afterwards.
• Adults being visibly frightened, particularly if it is unexplained.
• Not being told what is happening, which is experienced as being unable to trust the information they get.
• Being separated, which is the thing they are usually most worried about and the thing least often addressed directly.

Address separation head on, because it is the real fear underneath most of the others: "If we ever get separated, here is exactly what happens and here is where you go."

During something

• Give them a job. Holding the torch, looking after the little one, counting the water bottles. Purpose is the antidote to helplessness and it is genuinely useful.
• Keep the routine you can. Meals, bedtime, a story. Structure carries a great deal.
• Say what is happening and what happens next, in short sentences, repeatedly. Uncertainty is worse than bad news.
• Stay physically close. Proximity does more than explanation with young children.
• Let them be upset without correcting it, and do not tell them not to worry.
• Look after yourself in front of them. Eating, resting and staying calm are things they are watching.

Afterwards

• Expect a reaction, and expect it to be delayed. Clinginess, disturbed sleep, bedwetting, regression, irritability and replaying the event in play are all normal for a while.
• Let them retell it, as often as they want, and do not correct the details.
• Play is how children process. A child acting out a flood or a fire with toys is doing the work, not being morbid.
• Restore the routine as fully and as quickly as you reasonably can.
• If it has not settled after several weeks, or if it is affecting school, eating or sleep persistently, that is worth raising with a GP or the school. Asking early is not an overreaction.