© Yirmeyahu Ben-David, 2005.05.16
As the police officer strode into the mall he immediately spotted the woman who had phoned in the missing child complaint. She was frantic. He tried to calm the distraught mother enough that he could obtain the essential details and description. "What is the child’s description, Ma’am?" he asked.
"He’s eight years old, light hair and blue eyes," she replied quickly. "And his name, Ma’am?" the officer continued. "Jason Winters," she blurted, "please go find him."
"Do you have a photograph I can have?" the officer asked. The woman quickly pulled out his baby photo. "Ma’am, he’s eight years old now. I can’t find him from his baby photo. There’s a boy over there fitting the description" he noted, pointing to a boy among the mall pedestrians, "and another two boys over there about that age with light hair and blue eyes. Do you have something more recent?" Her heart sank as she realized that, even at home, the most recent photo was of his fourth birthday and his face was turned downward toward the candles on his cake. She had no way to communicate to the police how to recognize her missing child. "Do you have his fingerprints?" the officer probed, running out of options.
This is a fictional example. But it illustrates reality. It’s rare parents who ensure — both father and mother — that they have a photo of their children, always updated within 3-6 months. Many families couldn’t even provide the police with a recent photo of a missing spouse. Periodic family photos are greatly under-appreciated.
Rightly, the media stresses that you should find out what child molesters live in your area and where, but there’s much more that you should do. Show their picture to your children and warn them that this is a bad and dangerous person, not to be trusted under any circumstances and to immediately run away from, remembering to shout for help as they run, if they see him. (Pedophiles are prohibited from getting that close to children.) You should also write your state and federal representatives insisting on keeping molesters locked away from society. That may help in the long term. But there are things you should do right now to protect your children.
Warning your children not to talk to strangers is not only ineffective, it can be counterproductive in misleading them to fear ugly bogeymen in a trench coat while continuing to trust real pedophiles who are often clean-cut and well-dressed young men they already know. You need to find out how it is that the pedophile already knows them and may already have developed their trust.
Several years ago, my wife and daughter took some old reel-to-reel tapes of my ‘60s rock band in Germany to be digitized onto CDs to surprise me on my birthday. The young man who owned the studio, here in Ra’anana, Israel, was a clean cut, well-dressed,
A number of female teachers have made the news as pedophile molesters in the last couple of years. Do you imagine that there are fewer male teacher molesters than female teachers, or pedophile priests? Do you teach your child to obey the teacher? Today’s child must learn the teachers’ boundaries, when they respect them and when they should say no and run away shouting for help.
You may think your child won’t talk to strangers. But when an average-looking stranger walks up and announces that you’ve been injured in an accident, assures your child that he’s an off-duty police officer and will take him to see you in the hospital — where you’re injured, crying and asking for him — do you still think the child, suddenly without his mother, won’t go with him to see his injured and crying mother? Have you prepared your child for that kind of ruse? Have you given him a secret word or phrase — neither obvious nor hard to remember — that only you and the child know so your child can spot a false story and run away shouting for help? Do you review the secret phrase regularly? Do you, both parents, have a photo, not more than 3-6 months old, of each child; with you at all times?
Another ruse to make your child aware of is the heart-broken person who shows him a photo of a cute puppy that’s lost (or, ironically, perhaps a missing child) and asking your child to help him find the puppy — in the nearby wooded area, vacant building, etc. Other molesters have claimed to be hurt and asked the child for help in getting to a hospital, or that they’ve lost their wallet, a ring or something and need the child’s help finding it. Amazingly, he finds the lost item and, having now established trust, he thanks your child for the help and is happy to give your child a ride home or for an ice cream reward. Every parent needs to read up on the ruses that abductors use and prepare their children how to deal with them. A good place to start is Heidi Search Center, the F.B.I. website and other missing child websites. Protect your child — while you can.
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