Child abduction is a problem that can be faced by all families with children. Therefore, it is important to be prepared and take the necessary prevention measures to avoid becoming victims of a kidnapping. Obviously, it is not about sowing fear in our children and living with the fear that they can be abducted at any time, but it is necessary to establish certain guidelines to protect the children and make the alarm signal jump in case of emergency.
Keys to avoid kidnapping children
1. Protect their identity on the Internet
Internet is the perfect space for those who stalk children as they can find information about their habits, friends and favorite activities. Therefore, if you want to protect your children from possible kidnapping, it is convenient that you keep up with their online activities and establish filters to prevent unknown persons from accessing your personal information or contacting them.
Ideally, your children should not publish photos or personal data on the Internet, but in case they want to do so, they should only share it with their friends. Also, you should not post personal photos and information about your children on the Internet to protect their identity.
2. Choose carefully the people who will take care of your children
It is never easy for parents to leave their children in charge of another person, but sometimes the daily rush leads us to trust people that we do not really know to help us with the children education. However, leaving the care of our children in someone else’s hands can be dangerous, especially if we do not have enough information about those people.
Therefore, it is important that before hiring a babysitter check her references carefully and, if possible, contact the parents for whom she has worked in the past. Also, if you plan to leave the children in charge of a neighbor, first make sure they are a person of confidence and, when you pick them up, always ask them how the experience was.
3. Avoid identifying your child’s personal items
Many parents have the habit of writing their children’s personal information on their personal items, be it a backpack, a tablet or school books. However, although sometimes this can be a good strategy to recover lost objects, it can also help strangers to approach your children and impersonate someone close to them.
One solution is to write the personal data of your children on the back of their personal items, that is, inside the backpack, inside the pages of the books or on the tablet’s login page in order to be able to recover them if they get lost and prevent them from being seen by everyone.
4. Do not talk to strangers
Another important tip is that our son does not stop talking to strangers under any circumstances. Neither should accept candy, toys or any other gift from strangers. Neither must climb nor approach the car of a stranger. We have to be careful and monitor their friendships on social networks. We must make our son aware that he should not contact strangers by these means, as they could deceive him.
5. Never lose sight of your child
No one said that being a parent was easy, so one of the tasks you will have to take on when you have children is to never lose sight of them, especially when they are in open and busy places.
Shopping centers, parks, supermarkets and beaches are key sites for kidnappers because they can take a child without raising too many suspicions, so it is important that when you go out with your children do not take your eyes off as the kidnappers can take advantage of any carelessness. It is also important that you check them when they start to leave home alone and always know where and with whom they are.
6. If they are small you can use a harness
There are many stores that sell a kind of harness for the little ones, of course they can generate controversy because it is a kind of mooring the same as dogs have when they go for a walk, but if that prevents them from kidnapping my daughter I do not care what they say. As the little ones tend to escape wherever they want, it is easy to lose track of them, but with this mechanism you will be sure that they will not be able to leave.
7. Uses parental control applications
The applications of parental control are a very useful tool to protect children and know where they are at all times. Some of them, such as Amber Alert GPS, Family Locator or Life360, will allow you to keep track of your children and find out if they are really where they have told you. Ideally, before you start using them, you can sit down with the children and explain the importance of using these types of applications, as they will not feel that you are violating their privacy, and will be more confident and trusting when they leave alone from home.