These days, kids have play dates in our area, and many kids have not been left unsupervised to play outside of their own front yard even when they enter middle school.  In the areas in which they live it would be dangerous.  In some of the schools in our area children are not allowed to walk home from school, they must wait in the pick-up line for a parent to come.We have all seen the news? What is reasonable?  What is overprotective?  How do we keep our kids safe?

I think almost every parent goes into the "job" with the same goals- to raise healthy children capable of relationships, who can live fulfilled and content lives, can be independent and give and receive love. How parents go about doing that differs based on values and beliefs- and where one is located.

The precautions necessary to keep children safe may differ from one part of the country to the next and even within a city. Throw in the internet- and wow- you may have a great debate and a lot of decisions.

There are some things to consider, that may be new or different. In talking with local law enforcement and the child crimes investigations department/victim witness sexual assault officers and counselors over the last few years, these are some concepts that I could be a bad idea.

1. ID bracelets. I know I had one with my name, adress and phone number growing up. These are probably not a good idea- as child predators look for children who are easy targets. If your child's identifying information is readily available and on their wrist it is that much easier for your child to be found by a stranger. I know, what a conundrum, because the school wants all your kids' stuff labeled with their name and phone number. Use a work telephone number if you or your partner has one- it will be more difficult to trace the address.
2. Those cute little stick figures. You know on the back of car, necklaces, totes. Great of they don't have your kids names on them. I see a few around our city all the time with the kids name on them, and I wonder how easy it would be for the wrong person to simply follow them to a park and call their name. And then I question my own thought process. I asked a friend of mine in the district attorneys office if I had lost my mind, and she told me that sadly, no, she would never put her kids names anywhere on her car, purse, or even desk. Go ahead and do the sticker, skip the names.
3. Internet photos. I see pictures of kids all the time on the internet- on blogs, public sites, etc. The problem is that occasionally I will follow other links on the blog and I can often- too often- get the name of the child, read the date stamp on the picture, and figure out the names of the parents and what city they live in. For a child predator- this makes a child an extremely easy target. The person now knows personal information about that child and can find them easily. If you need to post pictures of your child to send to family- set up a private account on one of the photo sites- make them accessible by password only. Give the password to your friends and use a business address to set up the account if required. If you want to include pictures in your blog, set the blog for private, or set the blog page as private- which can be done on some platforms. If you think that is paranoid- at least remove the time stamp and make sure your child's names and your names - and adress -are not linked to the pictures.
4. Request that friends and family not post pictures of your child on their blogs with identifying information. You would be surprised at the numbers of pictures out there with a child's first and last name, city and school you can find. Remember, child predators do not think like we do, they are simply looking for an easy target.
5. If your child has an e-mail account or plays webkins or is on the internet- monitor them. If you have put parental controls on your computer, you still need to monitor. Some spyware actually targets those controls because it knows that it is a child and actually increases spam and inappropriate content. I have an e-mail account I pay for, and when I put parental controls on it- the spam and pornographic material that came to the mailbox - before my child ever logged on to use it- was 5 times more than mine in a few days. A friend/neighbor has a child who misspelled a body part and typed it into a search engine and got images that kept popping up- hundreds in a minute- that still cannot leave his 7 year old mind. Software programs that you purchase like Kidswatch Internet Security Parental Control V5 may be less likely to act as a magnet.
6. About MySpace and Facebook... Let's face it, the kids are smarter than we are. I have talked to so many parents who have "made their kids get rid of their myspace" only to talk to the teen and find out they have 5 other profiles under a different name/age/town that they access on others' computers. It is best to educate your children at an age appropriate level about the necessity of keeping identifying information private. The younger the child, the less opportunity they should be given to make mistakes. They are like puppies after all- running into the street to chase a toy. Older children and teens can be given more information without being frightened. Set the expectation and keep it clear. You can control the cyber acess in your home.

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