How honest should parents be?

[Athene]

A child certainly doesn't have to be abducted in order to be harmed. Wandering off and winding up in a park or the woods, a public restroom or even a friend's home, can result in an unfortunate incident. While child abduction may in fact be rare, sexual abuse of children is not.

Fear can be an undesirable impediment to growth, but it's also necessary for survival.

My parents informed me of all the things I wasn't supposed to do as a child, but they never really broke it down for me. I came very close to to be being irrevocably harmed on more than one occasion, because I only a vague notion of what people are actually capable of doing to children. It was only when I became a bit older, that realized how just how much danger I'd actually been in.

Children should always be watched outside when they're very small, but they gradually have to learn to be outside on their own if the plan is for them to become normal, functioning adults someday. At that point, they need the proper tools to navigate the outside world as safely as possible. One of those tools is the truth.

I made it clear in my first post in this thread, that I didn't feel it was necessary to be more graphic than necessary with the specifics.