Need to Know basis...

As a cub scout den leader, one of the things I need to teach my son Rob is what to do in case we get separated. I said, "if we are in the supermarket, what would you do?" He responded that he would tell a checker that he lost his mommy and could you please page her.


I thought we'd do a little role playing so I pretended to be the checker.

"What's the matter little boy?"

"I lost my mommy. Can you page her?"

"Sure, what's her name?"

"Maureen."

"What's her last name?"

"You don't need to know that."

It took me by surprise, but you know what? He's right! We live in a world with such mistrust and abuse of information that a simple question to help a child find his parent makes him suspicious!

Parents today have so much more to worry about than telling your kids not to take candy from strangers or get into a car with a stranger. We have to worry about identity theft (yes, they steal CHILDREN'S identities too!), online sexual predators, and plain ol' crazies!

I taught Rob to yell, "you're not my mommy" or "you're not my daddy" if someone grabs him and tries to make him go with the stranger. If Adam Walsh had yelled that instead of "Mommy! Mommy!" his kidnapper would not have gotten away with pretending he was just throwing a temper tantrum and said, "we're going to see mommy now!"

At nearly 7 years old, I still make him go into the women's restroom with me. Sometimes he really complains about that, so once in a while I let him use the men's room, but only if it's a one person type of bathroom. And I stand outside the door.

As a young girl, I used to walk down to the corner store crossing a busy street to buy cigarettes for my dad! Now, I won't let my son pee in the restroom by himself! My, how times have changed! And isn't that a shame?