The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has has done an about face and is now encouraging parents to quit using the phrase “stranger danger.” The NCMEC’s Callahan Walsh made that point last week in an appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America.
At least one blogger is not impressed. Dr. Marty Klein says the NCMEC is largely to blame for perpetuating the discredited “stranger danger” myth, despite knowing for years that it has no basis in fact.
For decades, NCMEC has told parents to fear “stranger danger,” and instructed them to transmit this fear to their kids. They even got the phrase institutionalized in elementary schools.
NCMEC has been one of the single biggest drivers of parents’ fear in our lifetime. By conflating “missing” and “exploited,” they have panicked Americans into thinking the average child is “at risk” of being kidnapped.
Self-styled “experts” — like the NCMEC — should not get credit for merely telling the truth.
Read more of Dr. Klein’s post here.