Fingerprint America is committed to providing tools for parents and community leaders to educate and protect our young. From our growing line of nationally acclaimed Child Safety Products to our online clearinghouse of safety information and links to helpful sites, we are dedicated to building strong, secure communities for the future.

If you have a question about protecting our children, send it and we’ll research an answer for you. Each month we will post as many responses to your questions as we can.  Also, watch our opinion column, designed to help us all keep questioning ourselves as we work to learn all we can to keep our kids safe.

April’s Preview

• School Safety Tips: Free Internet Screen
• Personal Safety Tip: A Call for Help: How?
• Questions From Readers, Answers from Experts: Neighbor Trouble
• Open To Discussion - One Opinion: Stranger Abduction Stats
• Statistics: Types of Abductions
• Links

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School Safety Tip

Even as many schools are taking the precaution of locking the building’s doors at all times, our student’s are gaining full access to the World Wide Web. While we are conscious of keeping them physically safe in school, let’s also look to protect them from some of the dangers in cyberspace.

The shareware program, called Surfin’ Annette, is a product of Spycatcher Corporation and promises parents and guardians more control for filtering the smut out of the surf for minors on the Internet. The program is offered free to K – 12 schools. It is available for home use at $29.95.

Surfin’ Annette is a fully functional stand alone web browser, which is used by children instead of Netscape or Internet Explorer. It can be fully customized by adults to block access to sites containing a variety of content including atrocity photos, hate language, pornography, and violence. Adults may edit from a supplied list of bad sites, and create blocking parameters on default settings. It has been reviewed and issued a 4-STAR rating by the ZDNetSoftware Library. 

Schools or school districts interested in an educational site license should mail a letter on school or district letterhead and signed by a principal or an authorized representative of the district. A registration code which grants a site license will then be issued. For further information, contact Jim Taylor at 714-460-7272 or jim@spycatcher.com

Evaluation download at: http://www.spycatcher.com/

Tell Us What You Think! E-Mail (Unless you otherwise requested, we may publish any tips, questions opinions, etc. that we receive.)

Personal Safety

Does your child know his or her phone number to call you in an emergency? …But could your child call you long-distance? Make sure each child knows his or her complete phone number – which includes the area code. They should know how to dial #1 plus area code, then their usual phone number. This could be very helpful if they were take out of state or out of your local calling area.

Children should be taught how to call 911 at an early age, around four years old. Try playing the “What If…” game to start the conversation. “What would you do if Mommy fell down and couldn’t get up to reach the phone? How could you get help?” If you approach the discussion this way, you are teaching your child how to use the telephone for assistance without scaring them. They need to know that they should not hang up the phone first, they should stay on the phone until the person helping them hangs up first. Useful information empowers young children to feel safe because they know what they could try to do for help. Start today!

Do You Have A Helpful Tip? We’d Love To Hear It. E-Mail

Your Questions -Expert Answers

Question: How can I tell a neighbor not to tickle or roughhouse with my child? I am not at all comfortable with it, it doesn’t feel innocent to me, but I may be out of line. 

Answer: First, you are not out of line to want to protect your child. Trust your instincts. Begin by soliciting your neighbor’s help in teaching personal safety concepts. “I would rather you didn’t tickle my daughter, as we have discussed that it is not appropriate for anyone other than her parent or doctor to touch her. I see she is enjoying it, but I need your help to reinforce that this is an important rule.”

If the touching continues, state firmly,” I have told you not to touch my child. You may not touch her again or we will not be able to visit with you. STOP, now!” You are role modeling for your child and alerting the person that you will not stand for this behavior, no matter how well intentioned.

Question: Are children living in homes located close to schoolyards in greater danger from lurking predators than children a few blocks away?

Answer: If you have any verifiable information to answer this question, we’d like to hear your response. Please click here to contact us. Watch here to learn what we find out. If You Have A Question or Answer, Let Us Know. E-Mail

Statistics

There are 355,000 reported family abductions annually. There are 3,500 – 4,000 reported abductions by a non-family member who is familiar with the child. There are estimated to be 350 – 400 stranger abductions annually.

Open to Discussion – One Opinion

Stranger abduction is rare – but perhaps not as rare as statistics reflect. When a child disappears and is tragically found dead, often this will be recorded as a homicide incident. However, it is important when filing reports that the whole picture be considered and included so that statistics can be as accurate as possible.

The problem lies in the statistics on stranger abduction, which cannot reflect the true number of incidents if a murdered child is reported only as a homicide when there was murder by a stranger who abducted the child.
We urge all law enforcement personnel to take care to indicate when a homicide is also an abduction statistic to improve the accuracy of reporting in these tragic instances.

What’s Your Opinion? E-Mail

Links
Reminder to law enforcement and educators, what’s “old hat” to us may be startling safety advice for new parents. Keep repeating “the basics.” For safety advice for parents, CLICK HERE to link to Our Safety Tips. 

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