Teaching kids how to deal with bad people

[sdr]

My son just turned 5 yrs old. For him ' life is beautiful'. With god's grace , so far he never came across any real life situation which makes u grow up mentally or which get u confused or hurt etc. (eg:death , fights , abuse ..etc) . I dont know how to explain the concept of 'bad guys ' to him.I need to teach him to stay away from strangers and how to deal with them . I want to do this without scaring him . Please help me with some ideas.

[Monkeypants]

I don't have a lot of time to go into detail, but you should read a book called Protecting the Gift. It made a huge difference in how I went about talking to my 3 yo about staying safe. It is an awsome book, really empowering and helpful. I have been recomending it to all my friends with children. This is a difficult subject, but one that needs our attention. It's great that you are giving it so much thought.

[sdr]

Thank you so much. I found that book in amazon.com with great review and I just placed the order. See, when I was a child I used to walk to school by myself , play in the backyard with kids in the neighborhood without my parents around and it was safe during those days.May be the difference is I was brought up in a town in India where the local folks always walk by and you know prettymuch everyone in the town . Here in US , if u dont have ur parents with u, you are pretty much on your own.
Some times I think too much and it scares me alot.
Thanks for the tip.