As a young child, Shelley Jofre watched the public information films about 'stranger danger'. Now, a parent herself, she wonders what impact they've had on her own parenting.
Parents of children who are now of the age when they want to be more independent; walk to the shop on their own or to school, will have grown up through the 80's when there was a Government campaign to alert children about speaking to strangers. The film 'Say No to strangers' which was shown in schools on TV showed a young girl outside school being coaxed into a car by an unknown man and then taken to his house.
Critics at the time said it was scaring parents into not letting their children out to play but what effect did it have on the children themselves. Shelley finds out what motivated the films back in the eighties and speaks to those involved in making them. She investigates whether campaigns like this were in fact detrimental to children's freedom and development today, swinging too far in the other direction and encouraging a 'cotton wool kids' approach. Show less