Stranger danger! It’s a catchy phrase. And it appeals to a parent’s most basic instinct, protecting their children. It drives me nuts.
Some children are more apprehensive about strangers than others. It is useful for me to know anything about the child that the parent or child care staff can tell me about a child. This frequently tells me as much about the adult
as it does about the child. The adult may be more concerned than the child. Either way I know to approach the relationship more carefully.
The part that drives me nuts is that it is very rare for a child to actually be afraid of all strangers in all situations. It is more common for a child to object to a loud or pushy person or to react to the apprehension of the accompanying adult. Sometimes this reaction is simply to control the adult. Learning how to get what you want from other people is a valuable social skill and is good. Manipulating and deceiving people is not good. You don’t want to teach the child that this works.
If I can get the parent or teacher to relax and trust me I can always get the child to respond to me.* Younger children can be conditioned to react badly to any new person just by the expectations of the parent or the teacher. If the adult doesn’t understand this it can be difficult for them to stay calm enough for me to work with them.
So, what to do? Acknowledge the adult’s concern with something like, “Thanks for the heads up. I’ll take it real slow.” Then approach the child with even more care than usual. Get their attention as quietly and as from as great a distance as possible. Do take it slow. Give the child a chance to react to you.
If the reaction is negative back off and even avoid looking directly at the child. I will gently throw a stuffed animal up in the air a few feet and catch it a few times. I might also bounce a ball.** Looking directly at a child might be viewed by the child as aggressive. When looking at the child gets a negative reaction back off quickly and still do something to get their attention.
You don’t want the parent or teacher to try to comfort the child. This will cause the child to continue to react negatively to you either because the child thinks it is expected or because the child wants to control the person comforting them. Either way, it takes you further away from your goal. Talking to the adult is useful, both to reassure the adult and to get the child’s attention. Before you make any progress with the child, the parent or teacher has to believe that you can do it and that the child is not afraid of you.
The middle clip on the “Welcome” video on my YouTube channel,*** Children’s Portraiture, is taken from the middle of a sitting of a child that would not let go of Dad long enough for Dad to sit her on the posing table. As you can see from the short clip, the child is paying catch with me and Dad is a believer. Actually, Dad was a regular and he had more faith in me than he did in his daughter’s tantrum.
I can’t tell you how to handle every situation of “stranger danger” in the limitations of a blog. I can tell you that every situation is manageable. If you think the child really is afraid of you, you will not be able to do anything about it. And you will help to create another person that “hates having their picture taken”.
The pictures on this post should look familiar. They were used in a post in October, 2017, Making the Road. Read that post and you can understand why they are appropriate for this post.
*It has been many years since I have given up on a child. I have let sittings go because it is not worth what it would take to convince the parent or teacher.
**I always use a racquet ball. They have a nice bounce and they are totally impervious to a one year old’s teeth.
***To see my YouTube channel, open YouTube and enter Children’s Portraiture in the search box. The apostrophe is important. I will post a full version of the one year old in the Welcome video soon.