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A Real Threat? Another problem is a focus on "stranger danger" - an infrequent peril. For instance, Escape School, a national program, instructs kids on how to break an attacker's grasp or to pull out the ignition wires in an abductor's car. But experts note that abuse almost always involves family members or other known adults. "You can't teach kids to be safe just by demonstrating dubious self-defense maneuvers," says Nancy McBride, coordinator of the NCMEC's Education Standards Task Force. The NCMEC's free guidelines for evaluating child-safety programs are available at www.missingkids.com or 800-843-5678. -Parenting Magazine/August 2000
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Personal
Safety I.D. Products and Services To help keep your children safe, you may want to consider purchasing some of the many child security products and services in the marketplace. This section will give you an overview of most of the child security products that are available, and provide you with the relative advantages and limitations of each one. (We have omitted the products and services that are new and require further development and testing.) It is important to evaluate the child safety products and services before
you purchase them so that you can avoid two key problems: There are several companies offering parents child security products; most are reputable, but unfortunately there are a handful of companies who are little more than opportunists seeking to capitalize on parents' fears. Many of these companies have either failed, have poor or misrepresented products, or limited, incomplete, or wrong information. For the most effective products and for the greatest security of your privacy, you should only deal with reputable child security companies or organizations. Before purchasing child security products or services, you should ask yourself: Are these tools really helpful? The following information will give you a frame of reference for evaluation. And because rarely is one product or service enough to ensure your child's security, the information in this section will also help you plan a complete child security system for your children. Child identification. What exactly does that mean? In today's world it means more than just giving authorities a sketchy description of your child. "He's three-and-a-half feet tall, blond hair, and blue jeans . . ." That type of information means nothing in today's crowded amusement parks, malls, and ball parks. As mentioned earlier, 10,000 people may pass through a typical mall on a Saturday afternoon. Compounding the confusing issue of child identification is the wide variety of child I.D. products on the market (the selection is growing as several companies move to enter the marketplace). How is a parent supposed to know whether the I.D. products being advertised in Sunday's paper are products that they really need or just another product that will give them a sense of security, but, in reality, do nothing to help protect their child? While identification products and services are an important part of a complete family safety program remember this one important fact: child I.D. products are for when a problem occurs. Just like insurance, you hope you never actually have to use it, but you should be prepared. Here are the child I.D. products you need to know about: Child Identification (I.D.) Cards A child I.D. card is the most convenient and effective form of child identification, because parents and guardians carry the I.D. cards in their purses and wallets just like a driver's license. There is no better way for parents to instantly provide identification of their lost or missing child to authorities. For maximum benefit, these child I.D. cards must be properly prepared and contain the exact information that is required by authorities to find a lost or missing child. (See the chapter called, "Carry Proper I.D. - It's Critical" for a listing of the key information necessary on a child I.D. card.) Some I.D. cards also carry medical emergency information, which can be valuable if your child has special medical requirements. Also, I.D. cards should be laminated whenever possible, so that they do not become smudged, bent, or tattered. Unfortunately, many I.D. cards are incomplete or poorly made. To be truly effective, every parent and guardian should carry I.D. cards for each of their children. You should also keep an extra card handy for babysitters, relatives, or friends to carry when they are watching your child. It's also valuable for children to carry I.D. cards on them. If they are injured or lost, the identifying information can help medical and law enforcement personnel assist them and contact you. Keep in mind that the cards should be concealed so that no one can gain access to the information. Your children can keep the cards in their backpacks, wallets, fanny packs, or purses. Child I.D. Cards have been used successfully many times in real-life situations. These cards can be obtained from child identification and security companies, through mall or business promotions, occasionally from police, and in do-it-yourself kits. Home-made cards are generally of a lower quality, but they still offer a valuable and convenient form of immediate response identification, especially if no I.D. card service is available in your area. Note: For families' privacy and security, we do not recommend that any personal information, such as photographs, fingerprints, and videos, be kept by anyone but the child's parents or guardians. That is why, in the United States and Canada, neither Yello Dyno nor its Directors retain any of this confidential information. (Other countries may require private registration services.) A new form of child ID is the mini-CD. The do-it-yourself mini-CD is slightly larger than a credit card and is for parents or caregivers to keep in their wallet or purse. Digital images of the child and all personal/medical information can be put on the CD. A plus for the CD form of ID is that in an emergency, photos and all necessary information can be emailed or printed quickly and easily from any Windows® compatible computer (such as those found in many police patrol cars and hospitals). In a medical emergency, it can be given to hospital staff to review medical conditions, allergies, doctor's information and insurance information. The downside is the love/hate relationship with computers - is it compatible? The CDID still does not replace an on-the-spot photo with descriptors and pertinent information that can quickly be shown and read to others. Fingerprinting children is one of the most popular child identification methods by organizations, especially at community events and malls. Many parents are lead to believe that a set of fingerprints will keep their child safe. However, fingerprints of children do nothing to prevent abduction, and they are not a replacement for Immediate Response I.D. cards. They are generally only valuable if a child is missing long-term. What's more, fingerprints of children are extremely difficult to get even by professionals, such as police. In fact, authorities find that up to 75 percent of the fingerprints taken of children may be of little value. The reason is that the lines on a child's fingers are very fine. That's why foot and palm prints are often taken of very young children. It therefore takes a special touch to ensure that the ink is not too heavy or too light, that the correct angle on the finger is used, and that at least 10 of the ridges and valleys of the pattern are clear. For this reason, parents should be sure that fingerprints are taken by people trained to take fingerprints of children and who do so regularly. Whenever possible, they should avoid trying to do it themselves at home. However, they are better than nothing until you can get them done by professionals. Fingerprints of your child, either one good one or a whole set, should be kept in an at-home fact file. If you only have one clear print, it should be the index finger of the right or left hand (depending on whether the child is right or left handed), because that is the finger your child is most likely to touch with and leave a readable print behind. Another important child identification method is a child I.D. home record stored in a safe place. An at-home I.D. record of your child provides thorough identification of a lost child. Again, however, it does not replace proper I.D. that you carry on your person. The advantage of a home record file is that it can contain more information than a wallet I.D. card, and is useful primarily for more long-term missing children. Parents should assemble an at-home identification packet for each of their children. Include in this packet:
Parents should store this information in a safe place in their home. Also, they should consider carrying a copy of this information with them if they are on an extended vacation. Since children grow and change quickly, parents should update this information at least once every year. While some sources recommend four times a year for preschoolers, that is not practical for most busy families. Do it as often as you can manage, but for sure once a year. If you have a properly organized home record file, it will be much easier to update. There are very specific requirements for a photograph that will be useful to find a child. As mentioned above, a good photo means a clear, color head and shoulders shot that accurately depicts what your child looks like. It must be a front view and be very sharp. Because children grow and change quickly, photos must be updated regularly. Video footage of your child provides authorities an opportunity to see the child from a variety of angles. Be sure to keep the videos safely at home in a fact file. You do not have to pay a lot of money for any "special" kinds of video footage, just use your video camera or borrow a friend's. From time to time, some video operations and businesses offer special child video promotions in some communities. The value of I.D. jewelry - bracelets, necklaces and shoe tags - is fundamentally the same as the child carrying their own I.D. card. If your child is injured or can't communicate for whatever reason, the I.D. can help law enforcement and medical personnel contact you. But so that you don't advertise your child's name, the information on the bracelet and shoe tags should be on the inside only. Also, the engraving on necklaces should be fine enough that no one can read it unless they are very close and hold the tag correctly in the light. Shoe tags are better than iron-on labels because children usually have fewer shoes than they do pants and shirts. Also, the tags can be transferred to new shoes as your child grows. The drawback, of course, is that if you are going to use them, they should be on all the child's shoes. The value of a bracelet or necklace is that you only need one and it is always on your child. I.D. jewelry can often be purchased at mall "kiosks," jewelry stores, and flea markets. Iron-on I.D. labels are generally sold in two forms. One type has your child's name, address, and telephone number. The other type is generally issued as part of a "child registration" service. The only information that appears on the label is your child's name and a central contact number, which is often an 800 number. If you register with such a service, make sure you are careful about who is keeping personal information on your child. There are two fundamental problems with iron-on labels. The first problem is just one of practicality. It is difficult for parents to keep current labels in all the articles of clothing of a growing child. Not only do children grow rapidly, they lose things and they destroy things. As a result, for many busy parents it is almost impossible to stay current with labels. The second problem is that law enforcement, medics, or other people who may be assisting your child in the case of an emergency may not even notice the labels on your child's clothing. I.D. jewelry, on the other hand, generally is easy to spot. Increasingly, photo-aging techniques have had a measure of success. In this process, a photo of a child is "age progressed" to try and determine what a child, who was last seen years ago, may look like today. However, parents must keep in mind that this technique is only educated guesswork. It cannot identify a lost child with 100% accuracy. Up until recently, the process of age progressed photos was tedious and time consuming, often taking up to 36 hours by a professional police artist or medical illustrator. Recently, computerized age progression technology has been developed. To age progress a child's photo, the artists enhance the facial features based on the child's parents' and siblings' features. To be effective, parents must be involved in the process because they can provide key descriptions of family members. While computerized age progression is faster, it is still a painstaking process, where specially trained artists must work on one section of the child's face at a time. While not necessarily an accurate depiction of the child at his or her current age, this process can give the families some measure of hope in rekindling public interest and generating new leads. Personal Alarms and Monitoring Devices Personal alarms emit a piercing shriek or siren when the child pulls a pin or activates it by some other method. Some are even two-way with the adult and child each wearing units. The purpose of monitoring devices is to allow adults to pinpoint a child's location within a certain range. But so far the effectiveness of alarms and monitors is still being studied. As we previously mentioned, no product should be purchased as a replacement for child security education. "No neighborhood watch or electronic device can replace solid safety rules and emergency strategies for children," stated an article in the Austin American-Statesman on January 29, 1994. If parents feel strongly about using alarms and monitors, they must remember one important thing: they are not fail-safe so you cannot depend solely on them. Among the problems: your child may forget it when he leaves the house, the batteries may fail, it may get damaged in play, and it may not perform as promised. While they may be great attention-getters, the other side of the coin is that people don't necessarily respond to alarms because they have become desensitized to this type of noise. Better than alarms or monitors is a child who knows how to properly scream, "This is not my mom!" or other appropriate phrases. Their voice will never be left at home and will not run out of battery power. If you purchase an alarm or monitor, do so as a complement to a family safety program, which includes well-rounded education. Make sure to purchase the devices from reputable companies. Gaining skill in a martial art can be a valuable personal safety tool, but not for the reasons most people think. Most experts agree that martial arts classes will not help a child physically defend himself against an adult attacker. According to Officer Dan "The Hulk" Razzano: "I don't care what kind of belt they have. Black belt. Green belt. A six-year-old is not going to beat an older person out there in a street brawl when the person wants to get the child." (HBO's "How to Raise a Street Smart Kid," video). Often children see images on TV or at the movies of children "beating up" adults, and they think they can do it, too. "Three Ninjas" is a great example. It's a fun family movie - but no reality whatsoever. In fact, if a child tries to fight back with an adult, he may only further enrage the person. However, according to those involved in martial arts, the skills learned do have important benefits. At the very least, your child can gain much needed confidence, self-esteem, and important life skills. The right kind of martial arts training helps educate the mind and the body. That can be truly powerful safety training. According to Sensei David Ham, member of the Aikikai Foundation (Japan), "When a child stops fighting and starts taking positive action to remain safe is when self-defense really works. And taking positive action is only possible with proper safety training." Furthermore, when children gain confidence through self-defense they realize that they don't generally need to fight to stay safe. Instead, they learn to steer clear of problems in the first place. The bottom line: the best way for a child to defend himself against an attacker is to use his common sense and personal safety skills. As you know, we think these are the most important products of all. However, just because an educational product is on the market does not mean that it is a good product; or even if it is valuable, that does not mean it is a complete child security system. You must use discrimination, and apply sensible personal safety principles like the ones you will learn in Raising Safe Kids in an UnSafe World. If you do purchase a safety educational product or enroll your child in a safety education program, you should review, test, and challenge what your child has learned so you can help customize it to the unique circumstances of your child and your family situation. There is a variety of safety education products, including music, books, computer games, and videos, that are generally available from your local library, book stores, music stores, video stores, or direct from private organizations. Programs offered in communities or through schools should also be considered. One of the most notable is Kids and Company: Together for Safety, a program of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children through its educational division, the Adam Walsh Children's Fund. (You can reach NCMEC at (703) 235-3900.) This school-based education program is organized into six sections with videos and workbooks designed for each section. The lessons stress "role-playing" and testing. The Yello Dyno Program, which includes seminars, books, music, literature, and identification products and services, is also available to schools, daycares, churches, civic organizations, and business sponsors. Missing Children Organizations There are many fine, non-profit organizations that are doing valuable work in the area of child safety education. Many offer valuable services and information to the public. They operate on national, regional, and/or local levels. Each one has their own particular focus. They are too numerous to mention here, but if you ask around in your community, you should be able to locate one that is active in your area. You may also contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at (703) 235-3900 and they will refer you to organizations operating in your area. |
Give us a call at 888-935-5639 Ext. 104 or Ext. 100 for assistance with any of your questions or contact us by email. We look forward to helping you select the curricula, materials, training and programs that meet your safety needs.