"My son loves video games. Recently, he was invited to a neighbor's house to play video games. The neighbor is an adult man, and the two of them would be playing at his home. I am not comfortable with this idea, but didn't know how to explain that to my son, who really wants to go."
This is a great example of how your knowledge of yellow light can help you to take protective action. A few warning signs we can spot are: 1:1 alone time. In a home. Special interest in a child. Something feels off.
What next? Try not to get caught in the Green/Red flip, in which you switch back and forth between "I'm sure it's fine" and "Probably a predator." Instead, just call it yellow light.
Explain to your son that: We always try to follow the "stay in groups, and stay in public" so this is yellow light. Even if we FULLY BELIEVE in this case we are safely green, we can practice using our car seat, because it fits yellow light criteria.
Can this be a group? Could it be at our house? Could we imagine sayinItg to this neighbor something about our safety rules? Could we call it what it is? "Maybe you didn't even think of this, but you are a grown man inviting a young teen boy to be at your house alone."
This is a great chance to talk to your teen about his own intuition, his own ways that he can stay in safe situations. It's also a chance to think through with him how he could be vigilant about boundary crossings, how he could get out of a yellow light situation (easy outs), and how he can ALWAYS talk to you, in fact is expected to talk to you, if anything yellow ever happens.
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