How Do I Teach My Child About Personal Safety?
By Nancy McBride, National Safety Director

Many parents and guardians feel challenged to keep their children safer in our fast-paced and global society. They may wonder at what age they can begin teaching their children about personal safety.

Unfortunately, “one size” doesn’t fit all. A child’s ability to understand safety skills and put them into practice is determined not just by age, but also by the child’s educational and developmental levels.To truly learn new safety skills, children need to model, rehearse and practice the skills to incorporate them into their daily lives.

• Speak to your child in a calm and reassuring way. Fear is not an effective teaching tool; confidence is.

   

• Speak openly about safety issues. If you approach child safety openly, your children will be more likely to come to you with problems or concerns. 

   

• Don’t confuse children by warning against “strangers.” Danger to children is much greater from someone you or they know than from a “stranger.”

   

• Teach children that no one has the right to force, trick, or pressure them into doing things they don’t want to do.

   

• Practice safety skills by creating “what if” scenarios. An outing to a mall or the park can serve as a chance for children to practice safety skills, such as checking with you before they go anywhere or do anything, and locating adults who can help if they need assistance.

   

• Supervise your children. It is vital to their protection and safety. Children should not be put in the position of making safety choices if they are not old enough or skilled enough to make those choices.

   

• Check out adults who have access to your children. The more involved you are in your child’s life, the less likely it is that your child will seek attention from other, potentially dangerous adults. 

Simple Rules for Children When They Need Help

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) has a signature safety publication, Knowing My Rules for Safety, to help parents and guardians teach personal safety skills to children. The rules are simple and concise and provide encouragement and options for children who need an adult’s help.
 

Copyright © 2006 National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). All rights reserved.

The Cyberbullying Research Center is dedicated to providing up-to-date information about the nature, extent, causes, and consequences of cyberbullying among adolescents.  Cyberbullying can be defined as "willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices."

"Well i always get bullied and i hate it i feel like killing myself sometimes." (13 year-old girl from Victoria, Australia)

We have included some new reports on Electronic Dating Violence: A Guide for Educators and Parents and Cyberbullying Fact Sheet: Cyberbullying and Sexual Orientation.

Summary Fact Sheet - Cyberbullying: Identification, Prevention, and Response. If you only have time to read one of our pages on Cyberbullying to get up-to-speed about the problem and what you can do, read this one!

COHOES – Everyone at Cohoes High School heard about the Facebook page, but no one knew who created it. It was called 'Cohoes Flame'.

The anonymous creator cut and pasted pictures of Cohoes High Students, and wrote nasty things underneath each picture. "They were just degrading everybody on there, it was ridiculous," said Cohoes High School student Ryan Goergen.

Goergen's name ended up on that page, he never knew who put it there until NewsChannel 13 told him who police arrested, 16-year-old Marquan Mackay-Meggs. "Are you serious? He's my friend. Wow. That's crazy, that's crazy."

Another student held her hand over her mouth in disbelief. "Oh my god, wow. I thought it was someone else," she said.

Cohoes Police spend more than six months investigating this case. Detective Jason Johnston even created a Facebook account to send a message to the then anonymous page creator. "He replied by telling me that if I could prove to him who I was, then he would take the page down,' said Johnston. Detective Johnston then took a different route, contacting Facebook directly.

Eventually the page came down. And, through tracking IP addresses, police found Mackey-Meggs. "He thought he was being funny." . . A neighbor came out, completely shocked to learn why NewsChannel 13 was there. "It's crazy to hear about it, I don't know why he would do that to hurt somebody," said Christina Beliven. "Even my friend was on it and it said how she was nasty and all these hurtful things."

Albany County law makers recently passed a cyber bullying law. This is the first arrest. Cohoes Police Chief William Heslin says he's pleased the case is resolved, but it was extremely draining for a small department to tackle a cyber bullying case. He says cases like this need help from the federal level. "They can pass all the county laws they want, you're still dealing with out of state companies that you need the information from."

May I suggest that you contact your local Congressman and push for a federal level bill against cyber-bullying?

Last month  research was published by the University of Buffalo and the University of Maryland that showed that teen’s online safety was improved by education.

“The researchers found that preteens and early teenagers who were educated on the importance of Internet privacy through school, parents, or the media were more likely to practice online safety than those who weren’t. Among teachers, peers, and parents, parents were the most influential in delivering that education, according to respondents.”

One of the more interesting results of the study were that girls were more likely to practice safe Internet behaviors than boys.   They believe that girls found internet safety and privacy online to be more important.

Boys are more willing to provide personal information, which goes against my own personal assumptions. I would be interested in learning more about why this behavior is different between the genders.

Kids Don’t Learn From Their Mistakes!

The researchers were surprised to find that kids who had experienced a “privacy breach” did NOT change their behaviors afterward, which increased their chance of become a victim again.  It’s surprising, all though very well known, that kids don’t learn from their mistakes.

It is just more proof that education is paramount.  Parents are doing a great job by discussing Internet “best practices” with their kids.  As the study showed, parents have the greatest influence.

Where Can Parent’s Go For Help?

As you may know, Children’s Educational Network has been dedicated to providing technology and education for many years now.  It has been our theory that technology alone was not enough to keep our kids safe.  We have developed educational tools along with KidSafe Software to help teach kids and parents the importance of being safe out there in the vast world wide web.

For parent’s who need help discussing Internet Safety with their children, there is a vast array of resources available on the Internet. We developed an Internet Safety Report for you to use and share with other parents, teachers, educators, and anyone else who might be in the sphere of influence for your children.

It’s nice to have validation by such prestigious researchers.