What are the most important things parents should tell a child about safety issues?
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Understanding Child Safety
What sort of dangers do children face today?
What is the biggest myth about child abduction?
When should parents be discussing safety issues with their children?
What might surprise parents about child abduction?
Is it alright to drop children off at the mall or the movies by themselves?
Can parents assume children are safe while using a computer in their bedroom?
Is there anything parents can do to check out the people who are supervising their child?
Is there a central database of registered sex offenders?
Is there a typical profile of an abductor or molester?
Who's more at risk: younger children or older children?
What are the most important things parents should tell a child about safety issues?
How can parents discuss child safety with their children?
How can parents contact NCMEC and what are some other resources they can use?
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Nancy McBride
National Safety Director, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
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 are the most important things parents should tell a child about safety issues?
Host: What are the most important things parents should tell a child about safety issues?
Nancy McBride: The most important things that parents and guardians should talk their kids about is the fact that this -- not to fall for this stranger danger myth for one thing. To be able to recognize and avoid potentially dangerous situations not people and the reason I say that is because many people who wish kids harm, appear to be friendly and benign and open and they may ask kids to do things for them, like Would you help me find my lost puppy? that one is still around and that one still works or Can you tell me how to get to whatever street? Let us remember one thing, if an adult wants to get somewhere, they are not going to ask a kid how to do it, they are going to ask another adult. So, these types of individuals are trying to engage a child in conversation and what we need to teach our kids is Your safety is much more important than being polite, you do not have to respond, we do not want you talking to this person, your only job as a child is to get out of that situation as quickly as you can, run away from it and come and tell a trusted adult what happened? That trusted adult can be the parent, the guardian, a relative, it could be the teacher.
Transcripts
Host: What are the most important things parents should tell a child about safety issues?
Nancy McBride: The most important things that parents and guardians should talk their kids about is the fact that this -- not to fall for this stranger danger myth for one thing. To be able to recognize and avoid potentially dangerous situations not people and the reason I say that is because many people who wish kids harm, appear to be friendly and benign and open and they may ask kids to do things for them, like Would you help me find my lost puppy? that one is still around and that one still works or Can you tell me how to get to whatever street? Let us remember one thing, if an adult wants to get somewhere, they are not going to ask a kid how to do it, they are going to ask another adult. So, these types of individuals are trying to engage a child in conversation and what we need to teach our kids is Your safety is much more important than being polite, you do not have to respond, we do not want you talking to this person, your only job as a child is to get out of that situation as quickly as you can, run away from it and come and tell a trusted adult what happened? That trusted adult can be the parent, the guardian, a relative, it could be the teacher.
Let us say something happens to a child on the way to school, they may run away to school and then the tell their teacher what happened, we have got to let kids know that there are adults out there, they can go to if they are in trouble, safety nets, if you will and tell them what s bothering them or what is troubling them or what happened to them and those adults would be there to help. But the only thing kids need to know in that situation is, get out of that as quickly as you can and tell somebody what happened.
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