Kidnapped Part 4 (A Necessary Concluding Chapter)

A Final Wake Up Call

Well, let me tell you that I did not intend to write a Part 4 to this series on Kidnapping… but something happened just yesterday, right here in our beautiful and peaceful little community of Kalispell, Montana, that made me know that I needed to do this concluding article.

Here in our beautiful and peaceful community and just about three miles from our home, a young boy, age three, has disappeared!

Amber Alert

According to our local newspaper, the Daily Interlake, “an Amber Alert was issued Thursday morning for a boy who disappeared from a relative’s house in Evergreen (a small subdivision of Kalispell) on Wednesday night. The alert signals that 3-year-old Loic J.M. Rogers is believed to have been abducted.”

If abduction can happen here it can happen anywhere! Like I said in my first Blog on Kidnapping, this family did one of the best things that they could do to protect their son… they live in America in a quiet and normally safe neighborhood. But that was not enough.

According to the article, Undersheriff Pete Wingert said, “The father, son Loic, and a younger sibling had just eaten dinner at a relative’s house on Maple Drive. The father took Loic out to the car and went back inside the house to get the other child. When he came back out, the boy was gone!” Wingert said.

The boy was wearing a red, white and blue coat; blue jeans; a multi-colored beanie hat; a long-sleeved T-shirt and tan leather boots. He is 3 feet tall and has blonde hair and blue eyes.Anyone with information is urged to call the Sheriff’s Office at 758-5610.

All that it took was that innocent brief moment and the boy was gone.

Start Today!

Practice all of the protections that were discussed in the previous three articles on this Blog with your children tonight! Right away!

Kidnapped Part 3 (revised because the previous article was incomplete!)

The Best Protection

Please let me go on record here as stating that I believe that the best protection against kidnapping lies in the heads of your children! The best protection lies in teaching your children to protect themselves because it is pretty certain that if your child is going to be kidnapped, the perpetrator will make sure that you are nowhere around when they commit the act. Your children must be able to protect themselves!

In a recent article By Wendy Koch, in USA TODAY, she noted, “according to a study released today by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the typical victim is a teenage girl on her way to or from school.
The study, released as a new school year gets underway, examined 403 attempted kidnappings by strangers or slight acquaintances that were reported by police or news media in 45 states from February 2005 to July 2006. It was conducted to learn how such attempts are foiled. The study did not look at successful abductions.

Six in 10 victims fought back and escaped, according to the ongoing study's initial findings. Three in 10 ran away before any physical contact, and about 10% were saved when an adult nearby intervened.

‘It is more important than ever for parents to empower their kids,' says Ernie Allen, the center's president. He says he doesn't want to scare children, but they need to learn to recognize danger and, if attacked, draw attention by screaming, kicking and running away.”

Parental Action

All of that being said, it is still necessary for parents to educate themselves in order to be able to effectively teach their children! There are also lots common sense types of things that parents can do to simply avoid putting children in situations that will make them vulnerable to kidnapping.

Things like never allowing children to used public restrooms unattended, or never allowing children to be out of their sight in crowded places like malls, stadiums, or theaters. (the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, that I will mention further down, will give you many helpful suggestions for protecting your children.)

Internet Safety Is Key

One of the newest tools used by child predators is the Internet. Predators use the internet to attempt to establish relationships with targeted children. Parents absolutely must instruct their children about Internet safety. One great resource for information about Internet safety is our Parenting with Dignity Warning Signs webpage.

Rather that rewrite what has already been written elsewhere I will simply give you the recommendation for a couple of sights that you ought to visit to become well informed about how to protect your children from abduction.

I personally believe that the best source of sound parental advice about child abductions is the site of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Their site is comprehensive and informative without being alarming.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is also the recommended parental help organization of the FBI, who has jurisdiction over all kidnapping in America. I think that speaks loudly of their qualification to offer you help. While you are at it, I would strongly recommend that you visit the FBI site and look over their information on crimes against children. (If you do visit the FBI site please be forewarned to guard yourself against becoming unnecessarily alarmed. Some of the information you find there will alarm just about anyone.) While reading their information please use it to motivate you to keep you children safe!

Guarding children against abduction and kidnapping requires education, careful instruction, common sense, and well practiced, and safe actions from parents!

Kidnapped, Part 2

Due to the recent number of inquiries that I have received about protecting children from being kidnapped, let me talk frankly about protecting your children from being kidnapped by strangers, like the boys in Missouri.

Practice Positive Action - What "TO DO!"

Protecting children from being kidnapped by strangers is a great opportunity to apply Rule #1 from the Parenting with Dignity Curriculum.

Deciding What You Want!

First, it is necessary to decide exactly what you want your children TO DO! Then you must decide on a strategy for teaching them to do exactly as you said.

Telling your children, “Do not talk to strangers,” is actually pretty ridiculous! First it tells them what not to do but does not teach them a bit about what to do.

Next, it is really pretty silly to tell them to not talk to strangers because that would mean that they could not order a meal in a restaurant unless they know the waiter and they would not be able to get assistance from anyone in a store unless they knew them.

So, what would be a reasonable thing to teach a child?

1. Teach them to be cheerful and cordial with adults... BUT teach them to walk rapidly and immediately away from gifts offered by strangers. Teach them to walk rapidly and immediately away from offers of rides with adults. Teach them to Run, Shout, and Fight to foil abductions if they are ever grabbed by some person, even if the person is familiar to them! (Over 70% of child abductions are committed by someone that the child knows!) repeat this rehersal many times. (You are then applying Rule # 3 from Parenting with Dignity.)

2. Rehearse regularly with children, at as young an age as you possibly can, their vital contact information. Then repeat the process in many situations and settings. (By doing this you are again just applying Rule # 3 from Parenting with Dignity.) Have children say, out loud, to you, their phone number over and over regularly. (That recitation must include area code because if they are abducted and taken outside your area code, a seven digit number will do them no good.) Have them repeat your home address over and over until it is just like a part of their name. Have them include the city and state in their recitation of your address. Have them state, out loud, the complete names of both parents. Stating it out loud, and repeatedly insures that they really do know the complete names. Just think about this for a brief second; in the recent abduction of the two boys in Missouri, those boys were allowed access to computers and telephones. Teaching your children to dial your home phone number will help them to let you know they are in trouble and where they are. Practice dialing your number on your home phone. Have them call your home when you are at friends, and teach them how to leave a message on your answering machine. If those Missouri boys had simply dialed their own home number after their abduction, they could have been immediately rescued.

3. Practice precise “escape actions” with children. Like I said above, teach them to Run, Shout, and Fight. Teach them to shout, “I am being kidnapped!” at the top of their lungs. Teach them to run to the nearest adult and sream, “Help! Help!” Practice hitting at the arms of someone who is grabbing them and running at top speed away and toward the nearest person or house, all the while pointing at the potential abductor. Create possible scenarios with them and role play.

4. Have a "secret word" in your family. There are many uses for a "secret word" but teach your children that one use of the secret word is to communicate distress to you in a phone call. Teach them to include your secret word if they are ever abducted and are forced to call home and are forced to say that they are at a friend’s or that they are OK. Teach them that their abductor will not even know that saying the secret word will give you the distress signal but that it will get you activated to rescue them.

Please check back tomorrow for some tips for parental actions that can reduce the chances of having your children abducted.