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.
