Safety Tips For Your Children

Children are our most precious resource, but as children, they often lack the skills to protect themselves. It is our responsibility, as parents and teachers, to safeguard children and to teach them the skills to be safe. This post helps you talk to your children about how to protect themselves against abduction and exploitation.

1. Know everything you can about your children's activities and their friends. Meet their parents before letting your children go to their home and keep a list of their phone numbers. If you can't meet their parents, call and talk to them. Ask what your children might do at their house and if they will be supervised. Monitor children's activities and participate with them. Don't allow children to play alone in isolated areas. 
2. Have your children tell you or ask permission before leaving the house and give them a time to check in or be home. When possible, have them leave a phone number of where they will be.
3. Teach your children about strangers AND to be aware of unusual behavior in people they know. Teach them to listen to their feelings and that it is okay to say no if any adults (including family members) ask them to do something that makes them feel uncomfortable.
4. Teach your children to refuse anything from strangers, including money, gifts or rides. Know where new items come from.
5. Teach your children how to safely answer the phone if they are at home alone such as stating the adult in the house is "unavailable" to come to the phone.
6. Teach your children to keep a safe distance from strangers and not to give strangers directions for help, finding lost pets, etc. Adults need to get help from other adults.
7. Teach children to use the buddy system when walking home from school, sports activities, etc. The age-old rule of there's safety in numbers is a primary safety precaution.
8. Use secret codes with your children (for use to positively identify each other or to ask for help).
9. Teach your children (including teens) to check first with you before going anywhere. Children need to let parents know where they are going, how they will get there, who will be going along with them, and when they will return home.
10. Develop a family plan stressing where to meet if lost, when you are away from home. Do not have children meet you in the parking lot. Inside the store, shopping mall or amusement park are much safer places to meet. 
11. Teach them their phone number (AND area code - where applicable). Have your children practice reciting their (your) home phone number and address, and your work and cell phone numbers. If they have trouble memorizing these, write them down on a card and have them carry it at all times. Tell your children where you will be and the best way to reach you.
12. Do not place your children's names on their clothing or on the outside of their possessions.
13. Teach your children to say NO to anyone attempting to touch them on the part(s) of their bodies covered by a swimming suit.
14. Teach your children to say NO, then GET AWAY, and TELL SOMEONE if a person bothers them.
15. Join with other concerned parents to set up safety systems for your neighborhood.
16. Teach your children about appropriate and inappropriate secrets and that some secrets have to be told if children and parents are to be kept safe.
17. Set limits on where your children can go in your neighborhood. Do you want them crossing busy roads? Playing in alleys or abandoned buildings? Are there certain homes in your neighborhood that you don't want your children to go to? Let them know and firmly enforce these limits.
18. Choose a safe house in your neighborhood. Pick a neighbor's house where your children can go if they need help. Point out other places they can go for help, like stores, libraries, and police stations.
19. Teach children to settle arguments with words, not fists. Role-play talking out problems, walking away from fist fights, and what to do when confronted with bullies. Remind them that taunting and teasing can hurt friends and make enemies.
20. Work together with your neighbors. Watch out for suspicious and unusual behavior in your neighborhood. Get to know your neighbors and their children so you can look out for one another.

Culled from NCAC and edited. Image: Google