Tip of the Week - Circle of Trust

Develop a list of trusted friends, relatives and/or teachers and explain to your child that these are adults that can be trusted in case of an emergency.  Teach your child that he/she should not ride or go with a person who is not one of the trusted adults.  You can also come up with a code word, teach it to your child and share it only with your trusted adults (see our tip on code words).  Our “What if?” Book provides a place for you to write in your list of trusted adults and review them with your child. 

For more tips go to our website.
To purchase your own "What If?" Book, go here. 

Our Latest Tip for Parents

Our latest tip is one that can be used on a regular basis to educate your child about potentially threatening situations.  Several non-profits and government agencies suggest that parents and guardians use role play to reinforce good safety habits.  You can use “what if?” scenarios to present your child with potentially dangerous situations and teach them how to react in those situations.  One of the advantages of this teaching method is that you can customize the “what if?” scenarios to the specific circumstances that your child may encounter.  For example, if your child walks home from school, you can pose the following question:  “What if an unfamiliar car slows down or stops near you while you are walking home?”    

      Parents may also want to consider using our “What if?” Book to teach children how to handle potentially threatening situations.  You can preview pages of the book at www.MyWhatIfBook.com.  For more tips go to www.PreventAbduction.net.

Weekly Tip

Locate safe places in your neighborhood where your child can run if they feel threatened, such as the home of a trusted adult, a fire station or a police station.  Show your child those places and use role play to go over situations when they should run to a safe place. 

For more tips go to www.PreventAbduction.net/TipstoPreventAbduction.html.

Featured Free Child Safety Resource

Take a few minutes and check out this free download at TheGreatestSave.org.  The link will take you to the KinderVision Pre-K Kit - a fun and interactive way for parents to teach critical safety information to children under 5 using games, activities, and stories.  For more free resources, visit our Tips page.

Our First Tip

Teach your children to trust their instincts.  If they feel threatened by a situation or the behavior of an adult, they should immediately run to a safe place and/or tell a trusted adult.  Reinforce that no one will be upset with them for protecting themselves when they are frightened.  Check back regularly for more tips or go to www.PreventAbduction.net/TipstoPreventAbduction.html.

Our New Site for Parents

Approximately 2 ½ years ago, a little girl in our community went missing one afternoon when she was walking home from school.  Her body was found several days later in a landfill.  She was abducted by a man who lived in a house that she walked past every day on her way home from school.  It was heartbreaking to witness her mother’s pain and follow the news reports on the authorities’ efforts to find this little girl before she was harmed. 

As a child, my parents would always talk to me about the importance of not talking to strangers, not answering the telephone or opening the front door if I was home alone.  I will never forget when my parents made me watch the Adam Walsh movie to further educate me on the importance of not wandering off from them when we were out in public.  I think the Adam Walsh story really “hit home” for my parents since I was approximately the same age as Adam Walsh when he went missing.

As an adult, the news reports of the missing girl really “hit home” for me.  The story was local, and I was now a mother.  While my husband and I tearfully watched the news reports,  we discussed how unthinkable it would be to lose a child.  For a parent, there is no greater fear than losing a child, especially in such a senseless and disturbing way.

My husband and I started looking online for products and information available to protect and educate children on the threats posed by predators.  We found a wealth of tools and information previously unknown to us.  Unfortunately, we also discovered that locating these resources was like a lengthy research project.  The information was fragmented and scattered over various sites. There was no single destination where a parent could readily connect with tips to prevent abduction, educational materials and safety programs offered by non-profits, child safety books and DVD's, internet safety products, or child safety products like digital ID kits and locator devices.

We launched PreventAbduction.net and this companion blog to solve that problem and assist parents with developing a child abduction safety program specific to the needs of their children. In the coming weeks, we will begin to feature common tips for safeguarding children against predators and the threat of abduction. We will also begin posting reviews of child safety books and DVD's that you can share with your children, as well as information about products such as digital child identification kits and child locator devices.

We hope you will follow us on this journey, and we look forward to your comments and insight.

Thank you.