Have you trained your child that a Police Officer is their friend?

 Been in the car driving with your children and noticed an officer using radar or looking in the rear view mirror you notice they’re just driving up behind you? Did you show fear, disgust or anger in front of your child?

How about your stepping on the brakes with your heart pounding and talking out loud about “the sneaky police always hiding and waiting to ‘get you’ in traffic” or “hiding in places so you can’t see”? You have just reinforced the idea with your children that the police are there to hurt you or to scare you (into obeying the law).

We’re long past Police Officer Appreciation Week in May,  but you’re getting a second chance now to do some ‘damage repair’ in relationships between the police and your children.  Make a new start and realize that many of the officers are there to help you, even though you may have been a recipient of a ticket at one time. You may have other ‘issues’ with law enforcement, but when it comes to your children, you want them to seek out an officer if they need one for help or protection.

A 4 Year Old’s Police Story

Speaking from personal experience as a child that dealt with an officer in Chicago, let me begin the story: 

I was with my mom and aunt as they pushed my little sister in a buggy while I walked alongside them. We were in my aunt’s ‘look-a-like’ apartment neighborhood, with many under-construction areas. I said I was going to beat them back to her house, but they were talking to each other and didn’t hear me. Being a smarty-pants four year old, I took off in the direction I thought to be the way to my aunt’s apartment. Passing many deep excavation holes, I couldn’t figure out where I was, tripped and fell down on my bare knees crying.

A girl slightly older than me found me crying and asked me the usual questions to which I had no answers. Fear had gripped me and I couldn’t remember anything I’d learned…my name…my mother…my address…my phone number…nothing. She took my hand and led me to her home where her mother questioned me. All I could do was cry tears and snot. The mother mentioned calling the police and I was frantically begging her not to call them. I knew they’d take me away….but had no idea where.  She promised me she would not call the police to calm me down…and then I overheard her calling the police. When they came to her door to ‘take me away’, the officer put me in the front seat of his squad car where I crowded against the door.  As he drove he kept asking me my name and all I could think of was ‘spaghetti‘ (my comfort food).  Looking up through the windshield as we pulled into a parking lot I saw my mother, my aunt and the baby buggy.  He let me out of the car and I ran to throw my arms around mother…my comfort, my safety.

Later that evening I was riding my tricycle showing the neighborhoods kids my knee scratches while being lost.  I told them how a policeman took me for a ride in his car. Bragging rights! It elevated my status with the kids that night.

I don’t know why I was afraid of the police helping me. I saw it as the police taking me away and hurting me. I don’t remember any single instance that my parents could have intentionally given me a bad feeling toward law enforcement. Since they were the greatest influence in my life, I can only imagine that they had ‘episodes’ of “look out for that cop following you“, or “slow down…a cop might be hiding around the corner“, “look out …you’ll get a ticket“.  In other words, cops are bad, out to hurt you and give you something bad.

Regarding Police, What Are Your Car Conversations About?

Now that you’ve been made aware of the impressions children take away from your ‘car conversation‘, think about what your comments regarding law enforcement are around your children. Take the time to tell them how the officers help us…protect us…and we can go to them when we are in trouble. Someone stopping near them in a car that then tries to pull them into the car and abduct them is trouble. Your child being lost is trouble. 

Hang Up Your Grudges

Tell them that the officers ‘wear the white hats’ in the battle of good versus evil.  Hang up your grudges against officers while raising your children. A Police Officer works the streets day and night to keep us safe, missing their family to care for ours. The day may come that your child needs the officer’s help……prepare them now by your example and words.

Some might say I’m naive as their views of officers is different. One man tried to leave a comment filled with cursing about how he constantly warning his children against the cops and their crookedness. Maybe he had issues with the police and how they treated him due to ethnicity or previous jail time records. You won’t find the comment as it was full of racial slurs from his end.

How do you feel about making your child feel secure in going to the policeman for help?

Can you child call 911 if they need to?  Leave your comments and I’ll respond.