Personal Safety for Children
Keeping children safe is everyone’s business
Personal safety for children depends largely on adults doing what
they can to help.
I often ride my bike through a large park. The path to the beach is
sometimes peacefully empty, sometimes crowded with families, and
sometimes isolated with only a drunk man or two stumbling out of the
bushes. The latter gentlemen I always wave to cheerfully, but their
behavior occasionally makes me glad I know self-defense.
One day, I saw a very little girl, barely walking and clutching her
doll,, wandering apparently alone. I looked around but could see no
one at that moment except for two women on a trail to the side far in
the distance.
I stopped and the little girl came trustingly towards me and said,
"Hi! I'm Annie!"
"Where's your Mommy, Annie?" I asked.
She pointed towards the two women, who waved at her. Absorbed in
their conversation, the two women then turned their backs and started
to walk quickly down the trail, leaving Annie alone except for me.
Personal safety for children can be compromised by many factors;
there are so many different kinds of hazards in the world for an
unsupervised toddler that I couldn't bear to leave her. "Annie,
show me how quick you can run to your Mommy," I said. Doll tucked
under her arm, she started running towards the women, but her baby
legs couldn't possibly catch up.
I called out to the women and they stopped just around the bend of
the trail, almost out of sight.
"You keep doing a good job of running and we'll wait for you,
Annie," I told the little girl.
Then I rode my bike up to the women, glancing back to make sure
Annie was still on her way to us.
The two women stood there silently looking at me uncertainly.
With all the warmth and kindness that I could muster, I started
talking. "Thank you for stopping. I don't mean to be rude, but
there are news stories about all sorts of awful things that happen to
kids and I don't want them to happen to Annie. I feel scared when you
let her get so far from you. This is a beautiful place and I think you
feel safe here because we are in nature. But I have had some scary
incidents with men myself here. Anyway, young children need you right
next to them ALL the time EVERYWHERE. Personal safety for
children depends on adults. You can't believe how quickly they can get
hurt by doing things that would never occur to us."
The women thanked me, and we kept talking until Annie caught up
with us.
This situation was clear, but sometimes it's tough to know when to
step in and when to mind our own business. It's hard to know what to
say. When we see situations that might be dangerous or abusive for
children, we often hesitate to speak up. We worry about whether we
have the right to interfere. After all, these are not OUR children. We
also worry about making the situation worse for the child.
I have come to believe that personal safety for children is always
everybody's business. Child abuse and neglect thrive when people
mind their own business instead of taking action when they can.
To intervene successfully and safely in order to promote personal
safety for children, we first need to notice what is happening and try
to have compassion for the adult as well as for the child. People do
get overwhelmed. People often lack child management skills. People are
often damaged by things that happened to them and have poor
boundaries. Most of us are not born knowing how to take care of
ourselves or each other.
The most effective approach is usually to acknowledge the feelings
of the adult in a respectful way and then state our concerns in a
positive way. If we become attacking, we will most likely make the
problem bigger, not better.
With permission, we might offer to carry something for an exhausted
adult, or entertain the child for a few minutes to give the adult a
break. I usually carry stickers and crayons in my bag just to have
something easy to give a child to do.
If a parent is screaming at a child, we might say something like,
"It looks like you are having a hard time. It is hot and crowded
here, isn't it. I am wondering if there is anything I can do to
help." My experience is that people are often hungry for kindness
and embarrassed, but appreciative. People might get annoyed, but
realizing that their behavior is noticed by others usually makes them
more likely to control themselves.
On a couple of occasions, I have literally stopped people from
slapping their young children. In one situation, a little boy had
wandered out of an open front door and I was bringing him back to his
mother. In the other, a little girl had slipped through the railing
around a cliff while her babysitter was sitting on a bench, and I had
called out to the woman to grab the child before she fell.
Both times, the adults had their hands raised to hit but I stepped
in very close and distracted them by saying very sympathetically and
firmly, "Hi. I can see that you feel upset because that was
scary, but your little one is too young to understand. I believe that
kids learn the wrong things when you hit them." Both times, the
women didn't hit, looked surprised, and we talked some more.
Once I waited by a car in the middle of a huge parking lot where
two young children were playing in the back seat with no adult in
sight. When their father got back, I said, "Hi, I know you are
busy, but I am sure that you must really care about your children. I
felt afraid when I saw them left alone like this." He looked
startled, but then thanked me.
Since children spend so much time in school, personal safety for
children in school relies on adults being advocates for creating
school environments that are emotionally and physically safe. We
should hold schools at least to the same standards that we would hold
a professional work setting in terms of addressing harassment and
bullying.
Of course, if we suspect that serious child abuse is occurring, it
is each of our responsibility to report our concerns to the
appropriate authority in our area.
Personal safety for children is everyone’s business.
KIDPOWER's underlying principle is that the safety and self esteem of
a child are more important than anyone's embarrassment, inconvenience,
or offense. By setting aside our own discomfort about speaking up and
by risking the displeasure of someone else when we do it, we are
sending a powerful message to young people that their well-being is
our top priority.
©
Copyright 2004. All rights reserved.
A publication of KIDPOWER TEENPOWER FULLPOWER International
www.kidpower.org
831-426-4407
Permission to reproduce granted with copyright notice and contact
information
at beginning and end of each article used.
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