Criticism
The process of constantly warning children of possible danger in the form of strangers has also been criticised as exaggerating the potential threat and unnecessarily spreading mistrust, especially when considering that (for example) in the US, about 800,000 children are reported at least temporarily missing every year, yet only 115 "become victims of what is viewed as classic stranger abductions". In situations where the child is in danger for other reasons, avoiding strangers (who might help) could in fact be dangerous itself, such as in the case of an 11-year-old Boy Scout who avoided rescue searchers because he feared they might want to 'steal him'.
According to the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center, stranger danger evokes more fear than abusers known to the child. This is because we have to operate on the basis of trust and reciprocity with acquaintances and it's hard to view acquaintances as threatening or fear them.
The father who rapes his daughter down the street generates outrage, but not the kind of fear as the stranger who rapes a girl in the neighborhood park.
Stranger danger has contributed to parents keeping children indoors, resulting in an alleged nature deficit disorder.
Read more about this topic: Stranger Danger
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A tailor can adapt to any medium, be it poetry, be it criticism. As a poet, he can mend, and with the scissors of criticism he can divide.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst—the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)