If you are to ask any parent, they will probably tell you that they have the smartest kids. It’s something parents have bragged about for generations, and they’re right. It isn’t that every child has all the book smarts they’ll have when they get older, but they do have a very high level of common sense (more than many adults sometimes). This was the case for an 11-year-old girl named Madison, who’s the daughter of Brenda James. She recently did something that not only proved that she could think outside the box but probably saved her life.
Brenda was worried about her daughter’s safety, so she came up with a plan that we all should learn from. She taught her daughter a secret ‘code word,’ and whenever a stranger approaches her, she was supposed to ask for it. The mother did this, just in case, she may have to use it one day. Little did Brenda know that that day would come much sooner than she could have imagined.
One day, as Madison was walking home from school, an SUV pulled up to her with a man inside. The man told her that her brother ‘had been in a serious accident’ and she needed to get int he SUV to go see him. He was also shielding his face at the time.
Madison was instantly suspicious because she had never seen this man before in her life. She then asked the man to relay the secret code word, he froze in his tracks and then drove off quickly. Madison then ran home to tell her grandmother about what just happened, and her grandma called the police.
The internet was cheered Brenda’s incredible parenting in that she taught her daughter a safety technique that may have saved her life. Perhaps your mom taught you something similar when you were a child? And let’s not forget to give credit to Madison for being able to remember her mother’s teachings during a stressful situation.
Brenda explained how their code system works during an interview on Good Morning America. If there ever came a time when someone they didn’t know needed to pick them up, they would always know the code word. She also hoped this lesson would teach her daughter’s friends that it’s okay to ask adult’s questions, because “not everyone is your friend.”
