Parents watch how children react when approached by a stranger | Parental Guidance | Channel 9

some parenting skills are hard to test like teaching your children to think critically and to make the best decisions when you're not around every parent wonders whether their kids know how to act with strangers so we sent your children to the park with a nanny and we hired an actor to approach them this test is important it'll reveal which parents have had tough but vital conversations with their children and which parents have taught their children critical thinking skills parents you haven't seen this footage before and i do need to warn you it is confronting jan and donna let's see how your daughter went ready set go there we go part of our french style of parenting is definitely to ensure that harper has the ability to create situations and to have a level of independence and decision-making ability and to trust her own ability [Music] i have told her be aware of your surroundings make sure you don't find yourself alone somewhere i say listen there are some adults who will come and take you away because they're not well so you've just got to protect yourself i'm 100 confident that harper will never follow a person never hello you got a dog too what's your dog's name i know i don't know that's an unusual name this is percy he loves these treats do you want to feed him a treat [Music] desire to know like treats um i don't know purpose just had puppies even smaller than i don't know six of them about this big have you ever seen a puppy uh yeah my uncle has one do you want to meet my puppies we've got three of them they're just in friend's house over there yeah just outside over there do you want to meet them uh i think i might need to ask my babysitter your babysitter oh yeah of course you can ask him ask him later he's on the phone right now it's on the phone he's busy come on percy we're gonna go see the babies we're gonna go see the puppies come on you sure you don't want to come yeah sure okay all right then have a nice day [Music] i said i was 100 sure donna are you okay it's confronting yeah treating her like an adult analogy you use is it flowed through there she had strong conversations she had eye contact she made her own choice she made her own choices yeah just absolutely incredible like yeah we're really lucky that we managed to get into a situation where we could test it um i said there are people who are really unwell they could take you away they could blackmail us we've had those conversations but you don't think it's going to happen to you i wondered if you've actually got some strategy to help us because i'd love to have that conversation with our kids we invite harper to to have a critical eye on everything even on on the parents you know there is nothing that you should follow blindly no law no authority no nothing question question always andrew miriam here are two of your children at the park could you help me get up there no you have to be honest i've gone up there before yeah i know you have but at the moment mum's not here part of our parenting we teach our kids to be wary of strangers hello they would be courteous and polite how are you going good yeah but if they began to feel uncomfortable about the situation what we expect them to do with a stranger is retreat fairly quickly to a safe place could i give him a bat yeah you can give him a pat look at that timothy careful you want to give him a treat see if he can sit sit say sit charlie sit ah there you go nice work guess what what charlie's just had puppies little tiny puppies they're just over there if you want to go have a look at them where are they just over there just over the behind the chair little puppies [Music] you want to go okay where are they let's go have a look at them it's just over here just over behind the barbecue yeah you want to give him another treat yeah yeah yeah i get there we knew this was going to be a confronting challenge i think that's why we're here to talk about it because it's a really important conversation to have [Music] that makes me so [Music] just [Music] angry that someone would ever do that to a child and i know this is an actor but i'm just like it was as a dad doing things to me about in that that scenario um yeah [Music] lara not my children but just the thought of that happening to your child when we designed this challenge we made sure that the children's welfare and their psychological well-being would be okay but it's really important in a situation like this that we are not blaming the children we want to talk about parenting styles i think maybe to be overly authoritarian could result in your kids having a sort of misunderstanding they might think all adults are in charge and might trust more than than they should yeah our children interact with a lot of adults we encourage them to be polite and friendly and to respect authority we mentioned respect of authority obedience it's really difficult for a kid let alone five-year-old kid to tell apart i know it's authority but i have a gut feeling so a bigger picture of our evolving strict parenting approach is to teach children to be responsible to a set of values it's not just about it's not about obedience our end goal is responsibility to a set of values that they own and they work out in their life internalized internalised not not obedience to what someone tells you to do every family at home watching is going to rethink the conversation they have around stranger danger because we're all questioning right now what the kids will do in a situation like that it's an incredibly incredibly difficult one brett and tony let's see how your four boys went [Music] we've had many conversations with the boys about if they are approached by a stranger really that they need to not engage really but i think in many ways because we are in a regional community we are in a sort of cocoon of love hey guys how you going good good do you like dogs i think we have felt that because there is four there is a bit of a safety in numbers someone's not going to take all four you're gonna pat your dog of course you can tiny yes you're so soft she is isn't she she actually just had a few little puppies i've got a few of them over in the car you want to come see them they're so cute unbelievably cute do you want to get the other guys do you want to come check out the puppies okay tony he has puppy did you want to come and see the puppies few puppies all good they're just over here i like it have you got a favorite type of dog oh yeah i've got my favorite type of dog fidget fidget oh cool how big is it is it a small one it's about maybe a bit bigger than your dog oh yeah all right that's so cute how old cause you have about two yeah cool you should see the size of these little ones they're like half the size of her they're so cute that one's hard [Music] i can't talk cry [Music] brett and i are very fearful probably because i'm a social worker he's a teacher we hear about these stories all the time i'm sorry guys we knew this one was going to be really tough um but it's really i think it's really important that we talk about it and we break down each one thoughts great i just i actually just need like two minutes rachel are you okay as a survivor watching the challenge was so confronting because that was a a small representation of a piece of my childhood it just got all overwhelming and it was pretty intense we're all questioning right now doesn't matter if you've had the conversation or not what the kids will do in a situation like that we've had many conversations about stranger danger but we probably have have sort of had that um sense of security because there's four lyrin and richard here are two of your children at the park never catch me part of natural parenting is we don't really want to make our children afraid of everybody in the world that they don't know personally i'm the but at the same time there are some adults out there who think it's funny to scare kids come on let's go over and so that's what i told them it doesn't make the world a scary place to them but it also forewarns them that not everybody is going to be friendly i think jojo wants the part do you love jojo hi cam yeah she's gorgeous yeah yeah she's three years old the little one it's tiny she's just had a few puppies actually i've got the puppies in the in the car you think she's cute they're cuter they're amazing would you like to come see the puppies okay yeah we're on this way i just tell them now oh that's okay if you just want to come see it's just this car here okay let's go it's this way we're just going to see the puppies in that different color oh we might leave it what do you think yeah yeah [Music] big sigh of relief there your child which is interesting when we look at your parenting style sought approval from the nanny before heading off part of being close to nature is listening to your instincts and our children instinctively go here is someone who is older and is here to look after me it's definitely worthwhile helping our children to develop and listen to their instincts teaching children to develop their own critical thinking skills is invaluable it helps them to deal with the challenges that life throws at them especially when parents aren't around you can encourage critical thinking in your children by pretend play and role plays or by simply giving them real life situations and saying what would you do if you were in this situation okay let's see how our attachment parents go lara and andrew [Music] i have taught the kids about stranger danger from a really young age [Music] i have acted out the scenarios of someone wants to ask you into their car because it's got all your favorite chocolates do you go do you not like it's my turn to do it so they have been really well trained but you never really know how they're going to respond in an actual situation hello how are you do you like dogs this is named chrissy oh come on raffy there's somebody that i don't know hello flip how are you good i'm ben this is christy do you like dogs um yeah did you want to come see some of the puppies they're really small really cute little um caboodles yeah yeah did you want to come see them they're just over there do you want to see him no no you sure just in my car over there do you want to see him you sure you don't want to come see the puppies you sure he doesn't no oh good all right have a good one guys come on chrissy now i'm gonna tell you something andrew i watched you when the kids said no your whole body relaxed this is triggering all of this all these situations just a reality that in the moment anything anything can happen so back row the things that you've raised in regards to attachment parenting watching that challenge has it changed your views at all yeah lauren andrew i want to say i'm really glad that we got to see that and i would really love to see more challenges of your kids without you see how they are at school see how they are at the playground and see how they interact because that has completely changed my whole opinion thank you so often like i've heard you know with your style you know it's almost like you're wrapping them in cotton wool and we to get them in a receptive place so that we can then get them to think and by play not through fear and that's my principle that's what i've been wanting to share with you and for me that's a a win because it confirms they are not insecure without me they can cope in school without me they can think for themselves without me as soft as i am i'm really proud of them a beautiful demonstration thank you one more important point when it comes to the conversation about stranger danger it is true that there are some dangerous strangers and we do need to teach our children that in whatever way suits our style but they do need to be taught as we've seen in this challenge this cuts to the very core of what we care about most the safety and the protection of our children and on that note can i just say i actually think we all need to get up and give each other a hug honestly it has been so intense so important you

Channel: Channel 9

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Keywords: channel 9, channel 9 tv, channel 9 tv show, parental guidance, parental guidance australia, parental guidance tv show australia, parental guidance tv show, ally langdon, alison langdon, allison langdon, parental guidance channel 9, parenting styles, strict parenting, french parenting, Dr Justin Coulson, karl stefanovic, love island australia, today funny, stranger danger, parental guidance stranger danger, stranger experiment, social experiment, parenting experiment

Id: GQnRnpfVoWw

Length: 17min 54sec (1074 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 03 2021