In This Edtion

Safety Tips:

• School Safety: Expert Gavin De Becker Shares Ideas for Law Enforcement Officials
• Personal Safety: Abduction Safety for Your Newborn Baby
• Questions & Answers: How to Help Kids Online
• Statistics:Baby Kidnapping
• One Opinion: Open to Discussion

School Safety:

This month we share the following excerpt on a challenging topic for law enforcement officials. It is from an article titled "What the Columbine Report Didn't Tell You - The Threat Assessment Challenge Facing Schools" written by Gavin de Becker, noted authority on violence and author of several books on the topic including, Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe.

"Let's examine the threat assessment challenge facing schools and police. Imagine one student threatens to kill a friend of his, while another student threatens to blow up an auditorium full of people. Is one threat worse than another? No. One outcome is worse than the other, but the relevance of each threat as a symptom is exactly the same.

A threat is to a school shooting what a cough is to lung disease: It's just one symptom -- and not even the most important symptom at that. If you think of a threat assessment as being like a medical diagnosis, a symptom might get a patient into the doctor's office -- but on its own, it cannot inform the final diagnosis. The doctor, knowing that a cough can be a symptom of many things (just as a threat can be a symptom of many things), looks for other factors that might offer insight into the likely evolution of the situation. The threat might be what brings a student to the attention of police or school officials, but it's just one factor."

Gavin de Becker also shares the following: Here are a few important pre-incidents of violence indicators to watch for in teenage boys:

Addiction to media products
Aimlessness
Fascination with violence and weapons
Experience with guns
Sullen, angry, depressed
Seeking status and worth through bravado about violence
Threats (of violence or suicide)
Chronic anger
Rejection, humiliation
Media provocation

Personal Safety

"Sharing the Joy, Safely"

When something amazing happens to you, it is natural to want to tell everyone. When you have a baby, you may feel like telling the whole world about your joy!

Not to rain on your parade, but before you go posting your baby's birth announcement on-line, you may want to pause to think if you really want everyone in the whole world to know. There are sites which let you post your photos and news, but also offer protection of your page so that only family and friends you invite to look can see your information (ECircles.com is one such site, and so is BabyLounge.com).

It is extremely rare, but it has happened that kidnappings have occurred because of information learned from printed birth announcements. Many hospitals have taken the security measure of leaving out identifying details for newspaper birth announcements. There is no reason to become paranoid, only protective and cautiously aware. There are about a dozen reported baby kidnappings a year, out of more than four million births. By leaving out personal information in a public baby announcement you are more likely to be protecting your family from unsolicited insurance sales, and other solicitations.

Before you give birth, it is a good idea to learn about your hospitals security measures. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children suggests these precautions for new parents:

- learn the hospital shift changes and routines so that you will recognize something out of the ordinary.
- never leave your infant unattended in the hospital, not even to use the bathroom. Call a nurse for assistance.
- don't hesitate to ask hospital personnel for identification when they enter your room, they will understand.
- get a complete schedule of follow-up home visits after your discharge, and request to notified in advance of any changes.
- be careful of acquaintances you have met since becoming pregnant.

Questions From Readers and Our Answers

Q:My thirteen year old will be home alone a few hours each afternoon this summer. She will be using the computer to play games, and I am sure she will be on-line. I am not computer literate myself, and I worry about the "chatlines" and the possibility that she will interact with someone with less than honorable intentions. What advice should I offer her to keep her on-line interactions safe?

A: We recommend that you and your child take a moment together to look at the Internet Safety Quiz for kids and their parents online.

Besides giving you great information, it will give a chance to share in something your teen is quite interested in.

Statistics

From AP news article by Stephanie Brenowitz

* There are about a dozen reported baby kidnappings per year-out of more than four million births.

* Of the 187 such cases that have occurred since 1983, 104 newborns were snatched from hospitals, 57 of them right from their mothers rooms; 66 were taken from their homes and the rest from other locations. Twelve of these infants were never reunited with their parents.

* Of the 187 cases tracked by NCMEC, only four could be traced to a printed birth announcement. Safety experts are concerned online announcements could increase this number.

Open to Discussion – One Opinion

At a "Family Fun Day" event sponsored by our village recently, there was a toddler wondering around without a parent visible. The toddler wandered into a volleyball sandpit, where a group of older boys were playing volleyball. One woman looked around and could not spot a guardian of the child, but was concerned for the little boy's safety, so she picked up the boy and moved him aside. Quickly the toddler's mother appeared and questioned the woman, asking if the child had been hurt. When she was told that the child was moved to prevent an injury, the mother looked very disturbed, and implied that her child ought to have been permitted to wander freely, enjoying herself.

Several concerns are visible here. Should a toddler be permitted to wander freely, straying from a parent in a public situation? Yes, we would like to believe our communities are safe and therefore not trail a step behind our little children, implying lurking danger. However, realistically a guardian ought to be concerned for physical safety near active larger boys, and ought to have been visible enough for anyone looking for the parent to quickly recognize who was the parent.

The other danger was to the woman who stepped in to move the child. As a stranger lifting the child up, it was possible for her to be accused of dangerous motives, such as kidnapping, since she did not know the guardian's mindset. Perhaps a security officer should have been asked to assist, or perhaps one of the boys playing ball could have held the child's hand alongside the concerned adult so that there was no appearance that the child was being taken by a stranger. While we all wish our villages were completely safe, it takes responsible adults to all keep alert to different dangers to make them as safe as possible for our children to enjoy.

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