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What Would You Do? A Kid's Guide to Staying Safe in a World of Strangers

What Would You Do? A Kid's Guide to Staying Safe in a World of Strangers
Keeping Children Safe

Monday, July 28, 2014

Protecting Your Children: Empowerment and Not Fear

 
 
My award-winning book, What Would You Do? A Kid’s Guide to Staying Safe in a World of Strangers, offers strategies to children and parents to help children better understand the concept of strangers. It explains to children the most commonly used predator lures so that they will not fall prey to them. It also offers children pro-active strategies to stay safe from such peril, threat, or harm. The book is listed as a recommended resource on the For Parents page of the Child Rescue Network and is a recommended resource for their Empowerment Not Fear workshops for parents.
 
 
It has been said that 75% of parents fear that their children could be abducted or abused in some capacity. To better ensure your children’s safety from potential peril or threat from anyone intending them harm, parents also need to be pro-active.




The following information is a brief excerpt from only part of chapter 5 (What Should Parents Do? A Reference for Parents, Grandparents, and Caretakers) of my book, What Would You Do?A Kid’s Guide to Staying Safe in a World of Strangers.  Many more strategies for parents are available in the complete chapter of the book.  
·       After reviewing with your children the safety precautions and self-defense strategies explained in the first four chapters of this book, practice them with your children.  Reviewing the information once is not enough.  To better ensure that your children would know what to do in a threatening situation, role- play and rehearse repeatedly.
·       Be informed of potentially dangerous people who may reside near you. By using the following websites, you can get data on convicted sex offenders and maps of areas in your local community where they reside:
Live Secure www.livesecure.org
Map Sex Offenders www.mapsexoffenders.com
National Alert Registry www.nationalalertregistry.com
Stop Sex Offenders www.stopsexoffenders.com
·       Keep recent photographs of your children.  Maintain Child Identification kits of your children’s physical characteristics and fingerprints. Photographs and Child Identification kits are important tools to help law enforcement locate a missing child.  Kits can be ordered through the following web site:
National Child Identification Program www.childidprogram.com
·       If you cannot find your child, don’t panic.  Search your home and then check with your neighbors and your children’s friends.  If you still cannot find him, call the police immediately.  Unlike with missing adults, there is no waiting period required for reporting a child as missing to the police.
·       Assure your children that you will always try to keep them safe, but encourage them always to be alert and always to follow the safety rules so that they can protect themselves from possible harm too.  Remind your children that you love them. Reassure them that, if they were ever to be abducted, you would never stop loving them, and you would never stop searching for them, no matter what the kidnapper says to the contrary.
 
The book is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and Ingrams, Follett, and Baker & Taylor catalogues. Visit my Amazon page for convenient links for purchasing this book.
Also visit my book website, MelissaHarker Ridenour Books, for additional resources, strategies and games that educate children about safety.