Ted Elness: Schools can help teach kids to protect themselves

Re “It’s teachers vs. day care, as the children pay” (Opinions, June 5): I, for one, support The Bee’s view on funding for pre-schoolers and day care. Many parents do a poor job, unfortunately, of teaching their children how to cooperatively engage with their peers or to be wary of unknown adults. This may be especially true of single parents in the poverty-lane. Emphasis should be placed on how youngsters deal with bullying types and how not to be suckered by child molesters. Kids need “street-smarts” early to avoid becoming victims, sometimes from their family’s acquaintances, even (hard-to-believe) a child’s stepfather or mother’s boyfriend. Pre-school and day care provide an excellent place to work on this. The same needs to be carried on, of course, into kindergarten and early grades.

This story was originally published June 11, 2015 at 5:55 PM with the headline "Ted Elness: Schools can help teach kids to protect themselves."