Picture yourself walking through a large chain store with your child. The groceries are to the left and the shoe department is to the right: You look down and your child is gone. Questions are racing through your mind frantically, and you don’t know what to do! Thankfully your child darts back in to sight seconds later, and all is well, right? The only way things can be alright after a situation like this is to make sure you regularly take precautions to protect your child from abduction, and have taught your child what to do in the case of a stranger grabbing him.
The first thing that parents need to remember is that a child is going to feel pretty safe if an abductor knows his name, and a name is east to obtain when it’s written on toys, backpacks, or clothing. An abductor will use this to his advantage, easily convincing little Tillie that her mom or dad needed him to pick her up from school. Teach your child that it is never safe to assume that you sent someone they don’t know to pick them up. Never write a child’s name on the outside of their belongings.
Sending someone a child doesn’t know to pick them up can leave a child with idea that it’s OK to get a ride home with anyone who says that they know the child’s parents. Make everyone at your child’s school aware of who may pick your child up, and let these educators know that you will be in direct contact with one of them if this changes occasionally.
It seems obvious, but don’t leave your children alone in the car. Leaving a child alone in a car is dangerous, and in many places, illegal. Many parents living in rural area’s or smaller cities think that child abduction cannot happen to them. These people need to remember that even the smallest towns can produce abductors and pedophiles.
Teaching a young child not to open the door for anyone they don’t know will reinforce the “don’t talk to strangers” lesson, and will also prepare an older child to be home alone in a few years. If your child becomes lost in a public place, he should understand that he needs to find a police officer. Tell your child that if the police aren’t around, he should approach an older woman for assistance.
By now, most parents are thinking that I have glossed over the most important part of abduction prevention: Screaming for help. However, it isn’t as simple as it sounds, Teaching a young child to scream if a stranger tries to remove them from a public place is a good idea, but not quite good enough. How many times have you seen a screaming kid been carried from a store by a grimacing adult? Abductor, or unfortunate parent who said “no” in the candy aisle? Hard to guess from a screaming, crying child isn’t it?
The most surefire way for your child to let anyone within earshot know that this person carrying them away isn’t mom or dad, is to just say it. Teach your child to be specific if someone is trying to abduct them by saying “You aren’t my daddy, you aren’t my mommy”, “I don’t know you”, and “Help! Stranger.” Any combination of these will attract immediate attention that could save your child.
Take video of your children every few months. Have them stand in front of a clearly numbered height chart, letting them speak into the camera, and show them playing to capture various mannerisms and facial expressions. Providing a video like this to television stations after an abduction could generate many more leads then a flat photograph. Hearing a voice or dialect, seeing a certain expression, or recognizing a gesture could help a citizen recognize your child.
Keeping your child’s finger and hand prints on record will also be useful should your child be abducted, so make sure you have these. Most police stations will fingerprint a child free of charge, but if they won’t, get paper and ink pads so you can do it yourself. Fingerprints don’t change unless the finger in question is subjected to serious injury, so once is enough.
