Most people believe that child abduction is all about the dangers that a child faces from strangers. But the reality is that the real threats of abduction are from the people who are around the child. The best way by which parents can safeguard a child from this is by educating the child. You may follow some important safety skills and ask your child to abide by the safety rules. Speak frankly regarding abduction and provide the assurance that they are safe. Still, you are worried about abduction then here are some tips that may help you.
What Is Child Abduction?
Any sort of threat to a child from a person is known as child abduction. Many people are concerned about strangers, but in most cases, abduction is done by family members or acquaintances. Hence, you must train your child about his or her surroundings and make them identify all sorts of threats. Identifying a threat will not help, but the child must know how to react to those threats. Here are some essential facts about child abduction:
- When a child reaches the age of 3, they can understand the basic concepts of abduction very well. So, you must start teaching them about the safety rules from this age itself.
- A stranger can be someone who is totally unknown or someone with a familiar face but the child does not know him or her well. These people tend to follow the child and try to get closer to them by offering them something to eat.
- At times, the strangers may follow the child in a car and force him or her to get into the car. They may give some sort of excuses or directly push the child into the car.
- Sometimes, people may find children asking for addresses to find pets. This method is the first step in kidnapping.
Talking to Your Child About Abduction
Child abduction prevention is possible only when parents talk to the child about it. If your child is aware of the possible ways one may abduct him or her then they can easily identify the threat. Besides that, you must tell your child how they need to react to any situation of abduction. Here are the tips that you can talk about to your child:
- Usually, parents keep worrying about the smaller child and ignore the older ones. You must understand that the children between 11 to 17 years old at more at a risk to become a victim.
- You should never frighten the child while talking to them. Be calm and talk to them in a non-threatening manner. If the child is scolded and then told about safety against abduction then that will actually cross purpose the safety message.
- While you tell about the safety rules, you must also mention various safety issues. If you don’t mention the issue and keep it secret then they will not feel comfortable discussing with you those topics. Like you should never confuse the child about a stranger.
- Telling the child to follow the safety rules and at the same time you don’t practice then the child will never take your message seriously. When you also practice what you say then the child can also incorporate the good safety rules in their daily life.
Suggestions to Help Keep Your Child Safe
The safety of your child is the most essential priority of every parent. By following the tips on child abduction prevention, you may set up certain rules for the child. But remember you must know certain things to safeguard your child. That means it is not only your child who is going to follow the suggestions but parents also need to follow some. Here is the list of suggestions that will help you to keep your child safe:
- You must accompany your child whenever they are going out to some places or even to play outside. If you are busy, check that a friend whom you know is with your child. Make sure they inform you about the same before making the move.
- Teach your child to be polite but they must also know when they have to say no. If someone tries to touch them or come closer to them, the child must know how to react in return.
- Have a good bonding with the child so that they can trust you completely and share whatever they feel about anybody around, maybe he/ she is a stranger or not. You must become the person whom the child can rely completely on to discuss anything and everything.
These days your child can become a victim of child abduction through mobile devices. Usually, children may talk to some strangers on social media accounts, and become a friend over there. Later, the stranger may insist the child meet and when they do so, they face some dangerous consequences. Therefore, you may take the help of some tools and techniques for safeguarding your child online. The use of iKeyMonitor is one of the reliable ways to safeguard your child. This tool enables you to check out all the child’s activities and tell you how to prevent child abduction. These are ways tools and technology play a role in the prevention of abduction:
- You can keep a track of the conversations of your child and check out the contacts with whom they chat regularly.
- It provides you the locations where they have traveled. With the help of the locations, you can easily find out the places where the child should not visit.
- This tool even allows you to block strangers on the social media accounts of your child.
Hence, if you follow the tips related to child abduction, then you can surely protect your child from it. Though you need to provide them freedom but make sure that they abide by all the safety rules. The child should have faith in you so that they can freely discuss their problems with you.