Ready Kids › Out and About › Badge 4 › Lesson 4.3
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Who to walk toward
Choose the adult you go to for help in a crowd, rather than waiting to be offered it.
1Watch
Two offers
Two offers
A kid alone at the edge of a busy station concourse. A man walking past slows and asks if she is lost. Ten metres away, a woman in a station uniform is helping someone at a ticket machine. The film stops with the kid looking between them.
22 secondsOne of them came to her. One of them she would have to walk to. Watch which way she is leaning.
2The idea
You choose. You do not get chosen.
Somebody who walks up to a kid on their own and offers help is probably being kind. But you did not pick them, and you cannot tell anything about a person from the fact that they came over. The adult you go to is one you picked, for a reason you can say out loud.
If you picked them, they did not pick you. That is the whole difference, and it is a big one. It means you never have to work out whether the person who came over is nice. You just do not go with them.
3The idea
The three you look for, and what you say
A uniform. Security, police, station staff, a shop worker in a branded top with a lanyard.
Somebody behind a till or a desk. They cannot leave it, and everybody can see them.
A parent with children. A pushchair, a kid in a trolley. Somebody looking after their own kids will look after you for two minutes.
You walk up and say: “I’ve lost my mum. Can you help me find her?” Then you stay with that person until your parent arrives. You do not go off with anybody else, even to look, even if they say they know where your mum is.
4The idea
The station, with the man and the uniform
Back to the concourse. The man who slowed down is asking if she is okay. She says “I’m fine, thanks,” and walks the ten metres to the woman in the station uniform. She did not have to decide whether he was nice. She had a better option, one she chose.
She says the sentence. The woman takes her to the desk and puts her mum’s name over the loudspeaker. Three minutes. The man was probably kind. It did not matter, because she never needed to find out.
5Decide
Who do you walk toward?
Pick one to carry on.
6Say it
What you say when you get there
Say this out loud, in your normal voice
“I've lost my mum. Can you help me find her?”
Short, clear, and it says what you need. Then you stay with that person until your parent arrives. You do not go off with anybody else, even to look.
7Find them
Which of these are people you would pick?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 4.
8Your turn
A busy scene
Tap who you would ask
A crowded shopping centre drawn as one big picture, twenty people in it. Tap the three you would walk toward. It tells you why each of your picks does or does not work.
There are usually more than three. The point is that you can find one in ten seconds from anywhere in the picture.
9Do it
Before you leave this page
Next time you are in a shop with a parent, point out the person you would go to if you lost them, and say why in one sentence. Do it in two different shops.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
You pick who you ask. A uniform, somebody behind a till, a parent with children. You do not wait to be picked.
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