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8 Basic Tips on Child Safety
1.) When
sending the kids off in the morning, take a moment out of the
A.M. chaos to really notice what your children are wearing. Over
50% of missing child or runaway reports taken by police do not
have an accurate clothing description because parents just
didn’t pay attention.
2.) Keep an up-to-date identification kit of your children. The
kit should include a recent photograph (digital is best), a full
description including height, weight, hair and eye color, blood
type, identifying marks, eye glasses and allergies.
3.) Know all of your
children’s friends, including names and contact numbers of
friend's parents, their addresses and ALL telephone
numbers.
4.) Since your children should be aware of “Stranger Danger”
and should know to never go with someone other than family or
designated friends, consider having a code word or phrase set up
between you and your child. This would be used in the event that
you need to send someone unknown to your child to meet or pick
them up. Continually reinforcing “Stranger Danger” every school
year, like safety, never gets old.
5.) Let’s be clear about
“Stranger Danger.” It refers to getting too close to or getting
into a car and going with someone they don’t know. Children,
like adults, need to communicate and talk to people they don’t
know in order to develop that sense of easiness of suspicion.
When we keep them shielded away from everyone, they are unable
to develop that intuition that we all have. As parents, we
usually break that “don’t talk to strangers” rule anyway, i.e.
When the teller at the bank, a total stranger, gives your child
a lollipop, our response is usually something like, “Well, what
do you say to the nice lady?”
6.) Special order backpacks and
book bags with your child’s name prominently displayed are cute,
but they are a really bad idea. It tells the world, including
the bad guys, who your kids are. When a creepy guy approaches an
eight year old girl and calls her by name, he’s suddenly becomes
a little less creepy to her.
7.) Don’t assume that your child has learned everything about
personal safety from their school. These days, all schools
review the basics of safety when travelling to or from school,
but it is never a bad idea to reinforce these lessons. It is
also never too early to start teaching your children about
protecting themselves.
8.) Lastly, we teach our children to not get into a car with
stranger, never answer the door to someone they don’t know, and
never use drugs or alcohol. These are valuable lessons we teach
our kids, but we all too often overlook another important
statistic: According the Department of Justice, over 1,000
children are injured or killed every year by accidental
shootings in the home. Many kids know where their parents keep
their guns and are often very eager to show them off to visiting
friends. Teach your children that if they visit a friend who
wants to show them their dad’s gun, leave that house
immediately. No conversation, no negotiation -- just get out and
tell an adult. Their life may depend on it.
A Must Have Book for ALL Parents
Once in a while a product
comes along that everyone with an interest in that subject needs to know about. This is one of these
products. Protecting The Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers
Safe (and parents sane) by Gavin De Becker is a
must-have for every parent, teacher, and child care worker.
Amazon Books Review
In this
valuable, even necessary book, author and crime and violence
expert Gavin De Becker shatters many myths about the typical
profiles of regular offenders and the prevalence of such
problems as sexual abuse and kidnapping. He also deconstructs
the wisdom of traditional maxims such as "Never talk to
strangers" and "If you are ever lost, go to a policeman."
Without offering a compendium of every conceivable danger, he
identifies warning signals and real risks that are often easy to
spot once you know what to look for. He offers practical advice
on recognizing signs of sexual abuse, choosing a baby sitter or
nanny, how to prepare kids for walking to school alone, and how
to teach children about potential risks without making them
afraid to venture out of the house. And he continually stresses
that denial and ignoring intuition are the biggest mistakes that
parents make in protecting their kids from those that mean them
harm. Well written and infinitely informative, Protecting the
Gift affords parents more confidence and less reason for
unnecessary worry.
(same book, two covers)
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