The trick this 11-year-old girl used to keep safe when a stranger approached her

The stranger danger trick police are encouraging.

We all learned from a young age to not talk to strangers, a rule that we’ve passed on to our children. However, some parents are also teaching their kids some very simple tricks to help keep them safe if someone unknown to them approaches them. That can be said for this 11-year-old girl who was approached in a park just outside Phoenix, Arizona, by a strange man in a vehicle. The man told her that her brothers had been in a serious accident and that her parents told him to come and collect her. Using a trick she learned from her parents, the little girl asked the man if he knew the “code word”. The word was one picked by her parents already that she and her siblings had learned to use in situations like these. Not knowing the word, the man panicked and quickly drove away. Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb praised the little girl’s parents for teaching such a simple yet effective safety trick to their children.

“Kudos to the parents of this child for having a code word and talking… to their children about stranger danger,” he told USA Today. “We hope by putting this out, it will encourage parents to have that conversation and create a plan with their children so they know what to do if they are in that situation.”