Child Safety Comes Down To Simple Confidence
August 25, 2007 by user2 · 2 Comments
“Confidence!?
This is an interview about child abuse, child safety and protecting children.What on earth does self confidence and a solid self image have to do with CHILD SAFETY?!” That was the start of last night’s radio interview we did. This little note isn’t about how popular we are. We’re sharing this with you to make a point: confidence has everything to do with child safety and keeping kids safe. So, we shocked the “Shock Jock.”Confidence is the Number One safety technique we teach. Confidence building is the Number One parenting skill we emphasize.No matter what the age of your child.
No matter who you are.
No matter where you live.
No matter what your circumstances are.
Helice Bridges of Difference Makers International discovered this years ago. She built an entire world wide organization based on boosting self confidence in individuals. There’s now special Blue Ribbon awards for all ages, people, professions and countries.
Confidence is the foundation for everything in child safety. Confidence building is a very powerful teaching tool, as well. As a parent you also have the very same powerful tool at your disposal. And a great way to apply this parenting tool is with EMPOWERMENT.
When you empower your child, you will truly teach them to make choices for themselves. When they can make good choices for themselves they will be able to assess situations around them and respond in an appropriate manner. They will be able to make THE RIGHT choice when faced with a dangerous situation, when approached by a bully or inappropriate adult or when grabbed or surprised by an extreme predator. Very simply, it is all about teaching your child to make good choices, the best choices, for themselves. Yes, they will truly be able to keep themselves safe for a lifetime.
In its simplest form, empowerment means your child feels like they have a measure of control over their life. They feel they can make their own decisions, good decisions. Most kids don’t feel this ability. Because they feel powerless, kids will engage in a struggle with their parents to get some control of their lives. In doing so it usually comes across as conflict:
No! I don’t want to go!
I don’t like that!
I’m not eating that!
Stop it!
I don’t want to!
Leave me alone!
How to empower your child depends on their age. For children ages 4 to 7, give them alternatives to situations in their lives, let them make some of their own choices. For example, instead of serving them broccoli, ask them to choose between carrots, peas or broccoli or another vegetable as you prepare it. Let them choose the socks they want to wear. Letting them pick a favorite t-shirt can bolster their self-image. Give in to their cries of, “I can do it! I want to do it!”
Kids around 8 to 13 years old crave parental trust. Knowing Mom or Dad trusts them is a powerful confidence booster for kids this age. Empowering your elementary age child means when they do something, you “let go” and trust them to do it. At this age confidence building centers primarily around the issue of trust and you as a parent have to lead the way by example.
When your child reaches high school age, most of your parental work is in place or done. It is simply a time to “guide” your child and confidence boosting comes in the form of respect. Most teenagers need to know their parents respect them. With kids at this age it is very challenging for any parent but demonstrating respect for your child’s choices for themselves, even if you don’t always agree with them, is critical for their self image.
These are pretty simple examples, but this is about as easy as it gets in empowering your child. Giving your child choices, trust and respect is crucial in their development. It is crucial in their ability to keep themselves safe against all kinds of dangers.
For parents who feel like they need to learn more about confidence building in kids there’s a great resource in India Parenting’s Child Confidence Boosting page. It’s packed with great links and information.
All this being said, will your child always make good choices for themselves?
No!
That is where you, Mom and Dad, come into the picture. You, as a mentor to your child, can guide them through the array of choices they will face. You can guide them and teach them about learning to make good choices and their benefits.
And safety? Well, confident kids are not messed with by bullies at school. Confident kids know when that when confronted by an inappropriate request they can to say “NO!” Confident teenagers don’t always bow to peer pressure. Confident adults do not intimidated by the nasty co-worker in the office. It’s called “safety for a lifetime.”
Preston Jones and Joyce Jackson
…keeping kids safe is our business
Keeping Kids Safe
Preston Jones and Joyce Jackson are child safety experts in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA. Keeping Kids SafeTM is a comprehensive personal safety course covering the full gamut of the things kids need to know today to be safe in their environment. Their entire APPROACH to child safety is UNIQUE. Some of the ideas they use you have heard. Some of the techniques they have you have seen. What they do is put it all together in techniques at home by making families better with safer kids
Children of the World – Child Protection Week relay baton letter
August 24, 2007 by Megan Bayliss · 5 Comments
Dear children of the world,
Imaginif child protection became serious business and we adults all treated you like you were the most valuable resource on earth!
Imaginif we put as much effort into protecting you from harm as we do for protecting our natural environment from rape. Imaginif, you could walk our natural and man made environments with no fear of harm from your fellow humans.
Many of us big people DO care deeply. We care about giving you a safe world, we care about your safety and your right to stay safe. We care that insufficient attention and funding is given to all types of child safety and child protection. We care that there are predators roaming the streets and cyber lanes stalking, grooming and hunting you down.
In communities everywhere there are houses that have adults who do not know what to do. They want to protect you, they want to make the world a better place for you but they are also scared. They may have been hurt as children. They may have witnessed a child being hurt and our adult systems of law, child protection and justice fail that child. They may have become disempowered and confused. They need you to restore their faith in a child friendly world.
Children we need your help. We need you to keep telling us what we have to do to create a world focused on the safety needs of our most important natural resource – YOU. We need you to use your powerful political persuasion, your voice, to inform us of what will work to help you. We need you to tell on those who harm you. They are the law breakers, not you.
I promise you that I will act to make my street a child friendly street. I will smile and say hello to children, I will stick up for them if I see anyone trying to hurt them, I will not be angry at the kids when they kick their ball into my front garden and have to climb the fence to get it back. I will instead say, “Thank goodness the kids in my street can kick the ball around safely.”
I promise you that I will make my cyber lane a child friendly street too by continuing to write about the importance of making child protection serious business. I’m also going to make sure my front yard is decorated with things that say kids welcome here: toys, and signs that we are a safe house for kids to visit. I can’t wait until Christmas time because we already have plans of decorating our house like an Aussie beach with kids having fun, fun, fun.
Thanks for being kids, kids. Thanks for reminding me that life is not all about working and paying bills but rather, taking the time to play, to hang out and to be happy.
Happy Child Protection Week 2007. May your week last the entire year. Imaginif …. child protection became serious business!
Child Protection Week 2007. Bloggers Relay we Care for Kids by giving a Blog.
August 23, 2007 by Megan Bayliss · 3 Comments
On the eve of Child Protection Week 2007, Imaginif invites you to join the global relay of bloggers who care for kids and are willing to make a statement about keeping kids safe. Use our cyber blog baton to help, not hurt kids. If you care about child friendly cyber communities, keeping kids safe and child protection:
- write a blog post beginning “Dear children of the world, Imaginif child protection became serious business”,
- add your post to our Mr Linky relay below (submit name of post and url),
- do something, at least one thing, in real time to display your commitment to keeping kids safe. It need not be a huge and labour intensive thing, just a sign to show that you give a blog about keeping kids safe:
- forward this post to blogging friends and encourage them to join our global relay of bloggers who care for kids,
- lend your hand and child protection message (via email) to Char’s global “flag of commitment“, flying at an Australian University during Child Protection Week,
- add a child protection site to your blog roll.
Child abuse and neglect is Australia’s greatest social problem, and it happens because people bury their heads in the sand and do little to involve themselves in the social activities of a caring community. Child friendly communities will help change this, because in child friendly communities kids are seen and heard. In child friendly communities, families don’t live in isolation and are not unsupported. In child friendly communities, everyone accepts that the safety and well being of kids is every one’s responsibility. This includes children who play on the world wide web.
The blogosphere is a bloggers wider community. Social networking sites are our immediate cyber communities. It is well documented that cyber space and the blogosphere are not the safest place for children to be. If child protection is every body’s responsibility then why are we bloggers leaving it to the cyber cops and large government agencies to take control of keeping our space safe?
Each of us have a role to play in keeping kids safe. Each of us have a voice. Make your voice for child protection count by joining our bloggers relay, because we care for kids. We give a blog.
Add your voice, your call for Child Protection becoming Serious Business, to the linky below. On the launch of Child Protection Week 2007 (September 2) Imaginif will forward this post to NAPCAN, an active committee member of Child Protection Week 2007. Be read by an audience who may otherwise have been unaware of your commitment to keeping kids safe.
Free Internet Filters Now Available for Australians
August 22, 2007 by user2 · 2 Comments
Article by Jace Shoemaker-Galloway: Internet Safety for our Children’s Sake
The long-awaited program of free Internet filters for Australian families as well as a telephone hotline where families obtain online safety advice, has just been launched.
The hotline’s phone number is 1800 880 176 and is open from 8:00am to 10:00 pm. Interpreters are available.
There are two different brands of free Internet filters available, which are Optenet Web Filter and Safe Eyes. Both can be downloaded directly from the NetAlert website or sent to the user in the mail in CD-ROM form.
Both filters are PC compatible but only Safe Eyes supports the Apple’s Mac platform.
Media Release: Net Alert Protecting Australian Families Online.
The Significance of Foster Care
August 21, 2007 by user2 · Leave a Comment
At the dawn of the new millennium, the term humankind has taken up new meanings for the most dominant species on this planet. We are faced with a world full of paradoxes and the very fragment of our existence is being questioned. The most urgent need of the hour is to re-enforce the values that have made us withstand the test of time. These virtues inherent in our nature are those of care, love and affection for fellow human beings. With the exponential growth in the population of our species, it must be understood by all that the present need is to shower our care on the precious human lives that are already in this world rather than producing more offspring. The concept of Foster Care serves as the perfect tool for sharing the infinite resources of love and care inherent in our nature.
The term Foster Care refers to the act of being parents to children who have been rendered alone in this world by their biological parents and/or by their guardians. These children have a satiable curiosity in them, provided that we give them the love and affection they deserve for their development. It is a very humane cause to become the Foster parents of a girl/boy who is eager to live with dignity on this unique planet. The Foster Care children are monitored by the appointed parents till their biological parents or guardians are fit to take the children back with them. Such a system is employed when the child is too emotionally attached with his/her family to opt for adoption by someone else. With this option, the child can be taken care of in a proper way without actual permanent adoption. It is a great practice for the child as well as the participating parents. The foster parents can have a rich experience and learn to share their love and care with a child, which prepares them to learn the true things in life. They can become better human beings and have an emotionally rich experience.
The foster parents are financially compensated by the Government for the expenses incurred in the child’s upbringing. In this way, the foster parents can nurture the child with the peace of mind that they will not have to bear added financial pressure for caring for a child. In such a scenario, the foster parents can care for a child more efficiently. It is a noble thing to do for the little angels who are attempting to live their life with an unprecedented zeal and zest. By opting for Foster Care, you show your virtues and set a great example for the entire humankind. In today’s scenario, it is required to renew the goodness of the society and emerge as a truly successful species in all spheres of life. If we can be good parents to a child in times of need, we will surely emerge as an efficient society free of all ills and ensure a better future for the world.
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