It is a good
question, but one with not many clear cut answers, mainly because there is now
a seemingly infinite amount of things that kids need to be protected from. Let’s
look back a few generations first; what did parents have to worry about in the
past? There were clear and definite dangers to parenthood, there always are,
but parents today have the whole world to contend with it seems. When my own
parents were growing up it was normal for parents to have no idea where their
kids were for hours at a time. Not so today, when parents are often reluctant
to allow kids to ride their bikes to the park alone.
I
was born in 1985, one year after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)
was established on June 13, 1984, and grew up in the time when people were just
really becoming aware of the dangers posed by pedophiles. In my kindergarten,
we were introduced to the “Stranger Danger” program. The eighties marked the
loss of our nations innocence in the sense that we were forced to come to terms
with the some of the most horrible crimes in existence. Etan Patz became a name
that almost every parent in America knew. He disappeared in 1979 on his way to
school and was never seen again. So many young, fresh faces on missing children
posters plastered across the country have spanned the years in between. In
1981, John Walsh met heartbreak when his six year old son Adam was abducted
from a shopping mall and murdered.
Visiting the NCMEC website shows disturbing
statistics, such as, an average of roughly 2,185 children are reported missing
every day, making a yearly total of approximately 797,500. But what may be more
disturbing to some is that only 115 of these cases were of the “traditional
kidnapping standard”, which according to the NCMEC means “someone the child
does not know or slight acquaintance holds the child over night or transports
the child more 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom, or intends to
keep the child permanently”.
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With growth in technology over the years, the
rise in danger to kids has come just as far. Aside from the obvious warnings
like “Don’t talk to strangers” and “Use the buddy system” we have to watch out
for predators online. More and more kids are becoming active on the internet
and at younger ages too. Kindergartners often have a strong working knowledge
of how to navigate on the web, but no knowledge of what NOT to respond to. It
is so easy for a 7 year old to find himself in a teen chat room crawling with individuals
that will try to prey on them.
By now, most of us have seen the Dateline NBC
specials with Chris Hansen, To Catch a Predator. For those that haven’t, this
is an eye opening piece of investigative journalism that involved extensive
coordination with law enforcement agencies as well as teaming up with an online
group known as Perverted Justice. The idea of the show was simple; set up a
house with surveillance equipment, pose as teens in chat rooms, lure the
predator to the home, rather than allowing the predator to lure a real child
FROM their home. The scary part was HOW MANY TIMES they were able to net
pedophiles. This show ran for three years from 2004 to 2007 and they always got
the target! And that made me think about how many real kids those people
actually got to! It’s enough to make any parent a little nauseous.
According to the NCMEC statistics page; “Approximately
one in seven youth online (10-17yr olds) received a sexual solicitation or
approach over the Internet”. Four percent of these solicitations are
aggressive, meaning the child is asked to meet somewhere with the predator, the
child is contacted by the predator on the phone or sent offline mail such as
gifts or flowers. We need to monitor our children’s Internet activity better,
not to say it must be restricted completely, but parental controls must be
implemented and maintained. That is the worst part about this problem at least.
It is so preventable!
Abductions
If you keep up with news reports, you will
notice the trend. Kids go out to walk to a friend’s house, the park, the store,
school, anywhere, and just never come back. In some cases a body is found, but
in too many, as in the case of Etan Patz, there is never any trace. In some
cases they even disappear from inside their own homes. Polly Klaas was having a
sleepover with friends on October 1st 1993 at her home in Petaluma
CA, when Richard Allen David broke in, bound Polly’s friends and took the 12
year old away into the night. Her brutalized body was found on private
property, Davis was arrested and sentenced to death, but Polly didn’t come
home. She aspired to be famous, and her father Mark made sure that her wish
came true after her death with the KlaasKids Foundation, which helps stop child
predators and search for missing children.
Other Kids
There are thousands upon thousands of stories
like Polly Klaas and Etan Patz, stranger abductions, kidnappings of the most
original standard. But what about the dangers posed by other children? This is
a trend that is becoming more and more concerning. One recent case that comes
to mind is that of Elizabeth Olten, a nine year old girl from Missouri who was
murdered in a premeditated and cold blood fashion by 15 year old Alyssa
Bustamante. Elizabeth was friends with a sibling of Alyssa’s and was heading
home from their house when Alyssa followed her, lured her into the woods nearby
to a previously dug grave, strangled her and cut her throat before burying her
and then returning to her home. The disturbed girl confessed to the crime and
lead police to where Elizabeth was buried. When cops asked her why she did she
replied “I just wanted to see what it felt like to kill someone”.
Abuse and Neglect
Kids are exposed to so many things now, and
many of those things can leave them mentally unstable. This has been a
generation of parents abandoning their children with grandparents, aunts or
uncles. It is a generation of parents who never stop partying, even when they
have babies. There is a new generation of many unwanted and uncared for children
growing up right now. According to ChildHelp.org, 14% of all men and 36% of all
women in prison in this country were abused as children. Thirty percent of
abused children will grow up to abuse their own children, and the worst numbers
yet; 80% of children that die as a result of abuse are under four years of age,
while over half of those deaths go unrecorded as resulting from abuse.
Awareness/Education
Until people’s habits and behaviors change,
the only way to try to keep our children safe is by using certain tools. Learn
how to utilize parental controls on your computer is a good way to assure
safety on the Internet. However, there are times when our kids are going to be
vulnerable and outside of our protective arms. This is why we must talk to our
kids, the earlier the better, about the dangers that they must help you protect
them against. Make a planned meeting place if you are ever late picking them up
from school, preferably ON CAMPUS so that they are in range of trusted adults.
Make sure your child knows the way home, their address and phone number, and an
emergency contact. If your child is trustworthy, invest in a cell phone for
emergencies. Go to your local police department and request a Child Safety ID
Kit. These are free and an invaluable tool to law enforcement in the event that
your child ever DOES go missing.
Education and awareness is the only way to
begin the battle against the vast dangers lurking in the shadows, waiting for
us to turn our backs for just a minute.
References
The National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children - Statistics - http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/Statistics.pdf
ChildHelp. -
National Child Abuse Statistics - http://www.childhelp.org/pages/statistics
truTV Crime
Library - The Killing of Polly Klaas - http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/klaas/1.html
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