Parental Understandings of ‘Stranger Danger’: Balancing Fear of Victimisation by Strangers Against Enabling Autonomy and Independence in Children

Abstract

For decades, children have been taught about ‘stranger danger’. Fear of the stranger has been associated with overly cautious parenting strategies, and the curtailing of freedoms as children transition to adolescents. This article aims to examine the extent to which parents consider this issue of stranger danger in their decisions to grant independence. Qualitative interviews with 43 parents in the United Kingdom of children aged between 9 and 17 asked respondents about their approach to teaching children about risks from strangers and related concerns and analysed using thematic analysis with additions from grounded theory. Parental concerns broke down into six core themes relating to (1) concerns beside stranger danger; (2) risks in a blended reality; (3) discourse and messaging; (4) feeling uneasy as alternative lesson; (5) balancing anxiety with reassurance; and (6) teaching about risky people. The findings of this article indicate that concerns about strangers occupy more limited space within actual parental approaches to child safety than previously thought and that the overriding parental concern is to promote citizenship skills that will enable children to become functional members of society.