What is the biggest myth about child abduction?

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Nancy McBride
National Safety Director, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
www.missingkids.com  
1-800-THE-LOST

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) mission is to help prevent child abduction and sexual exploitation; help find missing children; and assist victims of child abduction and sexual exploitation, their families, and the professionals who serve them.

NCMEC was established in 1984 as a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization to provide services nationwide for families and professionals in the prevention of abducted, endangered, and sexually exploited children. Pursuant to its mission and its congressional mandates (see 42 U.S.C. §§ 5771 et seq.; 42 U.S.C. § 11606; 22 C.F.R. § 94.6),

The NCMEC serves as a clearinghouse of information about missing and exploited children, operates a CyberTipline that the public may use to report Internet-related child sexual exploitation, provides technical assistance to individuals and law-enforcement agencies in the prevention, investigation, prosecution, and treatment of cases involving missing and exploited children, assists the U.S. Department of State in certain cases of international child abduction in accordance with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, offers training programs to law-enforcement and social-service professionals, distributes photographs and descriptions of missing children worldwide, coordinates child-protection efforts with the private sector, networks with nonprofit service providers and state clearinghouses about missing-persons cases and provides information about effective state legislation to help ensure the protection of children.

What is the biggest myth about child abduction?

In this video series, Nancy McBride, the National Safety Director for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children answers questions regarding personal child safety on topics ranging from the Internet, School safety, Holiday safety, and information about child identification. The Q&A provides helpful tips and tools for parents and guardians to help keep their children safer.

This expert: 108,645 views

This series: 27,000 views

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Transcripts

Host: What is the biggest myth about child abductions?

Nancy McBride; The biggest myth surrounding the issue of child safety is that the danger to children is greater from a stranger than from some body they know and this is an issue that we really need to retire, that whole stranger danger message. It is not effective because kids do not get it, adults do not practice it and if the child is in a situation where they need help, they are surrounded by a sea of strangers, none of whom can help them, if they have been taught never talk to strangers.

The fourth reason why this is a myth is because the danger to children is far greater from somebody they or you as the parent or guardian know than from a random individual. So, we really need to take this safety message and put it in a museum and realize that it is not an effective way to teach kids about safety.

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