From: cousins@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Kathy Cousins)
Newsgroups: alt.missing-kids
Subject: Re: What Would You Do If...?
Date: 28 Jul 92 16:24:24 GMT
Reply-To: cousins@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Kathy Cousins)
Organization: Carderock Division, NSWC, Bethesda, MD

In alt.missing-kids, lindae@netcom.com writes:
>
>QUESTION:  What are some things that you have done to protect your
>child from potential abduction?  How do you go about explaining all of
>this to your child without scaring him or her?  How has your child
>reacted when you offer these safety tips?
>
>Come on, let's hear your comments....
>
>Linda
>lindae@netcom.com

Interesting question.  I am looking forward to seeing other responses.

My daughter (Christine) is now 13 and we have done a number of things
over the years to prevent abduction.  (Obviously you do different things
at different ages but I don't remember exactly what age she was when
each was started).  Anyway, in no particular order, are things we did/
talked about.  Generally she was pretty receptive and not apprehensive.
Many can be done as a game or "because you are so big now you can
learn ________".  I don't think kids need to learn everything in the
context of preventing abduction and when you do discuss that you can
frame it as giving the child information or skills that enable
him/her to take some control over situations.

learning her name and then phone number and address (actually the first
phone number she learned was that of her day care provider rather than
her father's number or mine but that was ok since (1) there was a
greater chance someone would be home in the day care provider's family,
(2) they had an answering machine years before I did and (3) their
number is easier to remember)

learning how to get from different places to home ("which way do we
turn here?" "what is the name of THIS street" etc as a game)

learning MY parents' full name and city (near to mine) and how to get
to their house (just to give her, as she got older, more options)

being confident using the telephone--answering it, making calls, calling
information, later making a collect call home from the mall just to
practice, and recently letting her have one of my telephone calling
cards and having her use it when we are on vacation and had to call
her dad.  (I originally loaned it to her when she and her dad and a friend
were going to spend several weeks last summer driving through a
number of far away states.  She really liked the idea that "if anything
happens" it would be easy for her to call home.)

having our "secret word" and playing "what if someone comes to school
and says Mommy has been hurt and needs you" etc (we have all LONG since
forgotten the word but in early elementary school it really gave her
a sense of empowerment.)  However, you MUST keep checking to see if
everyone still remembers "the" word.

talking about "what if Mommy gets lost at the mall/grocery store" etc
(by the way, at about age 5 she was not satisfied with just the store
personnel/security guard options; she wanted more choices so we agreed
on another mom who is there with small children as a third choice--
luckily we never had to try it out)

in elementary school she was taught that a badge was not good
enough, they had to read it to see that it really was a police badge

if someone is following in a car as you walk down the street, wait
until you can safely cross the street and then cross and run back
the way you came (this also came from school, the idea being that
the driver of the car would draw attention to him/herself by making
a u-turn)

discussing the idea that a stranger is someone YOU don't know even
if they SAY that they know you

not letting her wear t-shirts/sweatshirts/etc with her first name on
them so that a stranger could call her by name and trick her into
believing that she knows them (this was when she was pretty young)

telling her that if someone should try to abduct her from a place
where there is ANYONE around that she was to repeat VERY loudly and
firmly "YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER/FATHER" so that other adults who
might be able to help, will help and won't think she was just a
bratty kid being taken by a parent

starting karate lessons (I have no idea if this will be good or not,
she only had 2 lessons before she had to stop for a while because she
has mono)