As a biologist and experienced handler of Varanid lizards, I can recommend that they be kept away from young children unless the children are well-supervised and conditioned to respect the animal. Savannah monitors are very intelligent and curious, and CAN be raised to be perfectly tame and safe, I'd even go so far as to say that an extremely well-handled monitor would be a safer pet than any dog. However, monitors are capable of inflicting very nasty injuries if they feel threatened by a curious child. It is extremely unlikely that a monitor as small as a Sav would consider any child a prey item, though!