About a month ago, a child was abducted from a school in our city. I want them to be trusting of the world they live in, but I don't want them to trust people who could hurt them. The most important thing we can teach our children is to trust themselves. If they can do that, if we can do that, then it doesn't matter what's going on in our environment. Then we know we have the ability to accurately assess a situation, and know how to respond to it appropriately.
Children are naturally sensitive and aware.
We all come in with the ability to know what is real, to know what is true, to evaluate our environment, and to be able to determine if someone else intends us harm. This is part of our personal hardware. It is always a part of who we are, it cannot be changed, but it can be buried or forgotten. Unfortunately, that is what has happened to most human beings on this planet. We have come not to trust ourselves and act on what we know, but to doubt ourselves and refer to the external world, or defer to others for our answers, rather than to our own internal knowing.