Strangers Aren't the Only Dangers

My son and I often take walks around the neighborhood, and I generally say a pleasant "Hello" to folks we pass whether I know them or not. After I do, every time, my son looks at me and says sternly, "Mom, don't talk to strangers."

So he's got the stranger danger message, clearly, and probably not from me. Sure, I fear strangers like everybody else, but I also depend on their kindness. I remember when my daughter was little and vanished into thin air in a Disney Store. She'd wandered out into the mall and was retrieved and returned by a, yes, stranger, to whom I was extremely grateful. I would have done the same thing for another woman's child, and it saddens me that the actions of a very small number of disturbed people have caused the rest of us to shrink from responsibility for the children in our midst.

For many parents this week, the story of Leiby Kletzky and his gruesome death at the hand of the wrong stranger to ask for directions has them worrying anew about the danger of unknown adults. That should be the kind of thing that gets my helicopter rotors spinning, but honestly, can we ever really guard against random evil? There will always be a boogeyman.

The stories that are keeping me up nights right now, fearing for my children's safety and future, are the ones in which the adults our children have every reason to trust betray them, when the safety nets we parents of children with special needs so carefully build turn out to have massive holes.

The story of Jesse Kersey scares me: while riding his bike in his neighborhood, he was assaulted by a police officer who knew he had intellectual disabilities and communication problems, but nonetheless interpreted his behavior as disrespect and Tasered, pepper-sprayed, beat, and arrested him.

The story of A.H. scares me: a 16-year-old girl with intellectual disabilities, she had sex with a male classmate in a school bathroom after the teacher let her go alone, despite the fact that her IEP required constant supervision outside the classroom to prevent just such activities.

The story of Ayn Van Dyk scares me: after an incident of wandering put her on the child-protective services radar, the 9-year-old with autism has been taken from her father and given anti-psychotic medications, two things she cannot understand or communicate about.

There are no horror-movie villains in my nightmares; it's the people who are supposed to be heroes that I worry about. And even as I work to build relationships and surround my kids with adults who will look out for them, I worry that these are also the people who, because we trust them, can most let us down. It's like one of those suspense movies where the anonymous killer is a decoy, and the real murderer is the mild-mannered fellow you'd least suspect.

Still, I can only believe (because really, what other option is there?) that the best answer for both stranger danger and untrustworthy trustworthy-person danger is to surround our kids with as many people who know them and care about them (and care about us) as we possibly can. Circles upon circles of non-strangers. After all, for many of our children with special needs, training them in safe practices isn't an option; they operate on impulse, they operate at much lower developmental levels than their chronological age, they have obsessions that override their sense. They need eyes on them, as many eyes as we can round up.

Which is why it's so important to get our communities to step up and care about our kids. We can't afford to retreat in the face of defeat and disinterest. We need to help our children find their place in mainstream groups while also building up strong networks of families with special needs who can look out for one another (even though, as another sorry story points out this week, you can't always trust other special-needs parents either).

Our kids need the good will of as many grown-ups as possible, with as many different skill-sets and points of view, and I'd like to think that all those other kids would benefit from ours. For some ideas on creating positive community experiences for your child and raising your own profile as a proactive parent, read:

• Five Ways to Make Your Church More Inclusive
• Sports for Special Needs
• How to Plan a Playgroup for Children With Special Needs
• Eight Ways to Stay in Good School Spirits
• Community Trouble Spots and How to Stay Successful

What's scaring you today?

_{Photo by Rick Raymond/Getty Images}