Many generations grew up with the boogie man and “stranger danger.” Kids were taught to distrust anyone they didn’t know. Books and videos were about the “scary man” that could come take children away. Most communication about child safety was, therefore, fear-based. However, Alison Feigh from the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center (JWRC) has new strategies for speaking to parents and children about personal safety.
Feigh recently spoke at St. Cloud Area School District’s “Safety: Inside and Out” event at North Junior High School.
Feigh, a classmate of Jacob Wetterling, has devoted her career to the topic of child safety. She vividly remembers his kidnapping and how it had a profound effect on her and the St. Cloud community.
“When Jacob was abducted, I was a sixth-grader here [at North],” explained Feigh. “It was like the kid sat next to me there in math class and suddenly he was gone. And, my brain couldn’t wrap itself around it. And still as an adult, can’t always wrap around it all. But I did learn, the more I learned about this stuff, the less scary it was.”
There are 115 kidnappings in Minnesota every year, according to JWRC. There are around 2,200 children nationally reported missing every day. Though the majority of those missing are runaways, JWRC believes that those runaways are at risk of being exploited.
To get ahead of the problem, JWRC wants to help create healthy relationships. Open communication, asking permission, looking for consent and lack of coercion are just a few things to start with to foster healthy relationships.
Times have changed. Technology has advanced.
“As a senior in high school, I didn’t have a cell phone,” says Feigh. She teased, “That is when they were invented.”
However, things that should make open communication easier have in some ways made it more difficult. She explained that advances in technology have also made us more vulnerable and susceptible.
According to JWRC, one in three girls is sexually abused before the age of 16. In addition, one in six to eight boys are. The time to have the open communication about personal safety starts at an early age.
To assist parents, Feigh recommends using “What if” scenarios as conversation starters. Parents don’t often have conversations about what it means to have healthy relationships. The “What if” scenarios help kids and parents start problem-solving situations together, and parents can’t count on their children bringing up the topics.
“What if a neighbor asks you to come over to their house? What would you do?” Feigh gave as an example. “What if it was a teacher or a coach?”
Feigh suggests trying the “What if” scenarios while riding in the car, or during a family game night. Having an engaging conversation about “What if” helps create the path to having established safety rules.
She explains the importance of safety rules with statistics.
In 97 percent of abuse cases, the child knows the perpetrator. The most victimized are 12- to 17-year-olds. Adolescents represent 14 percent of the United States’ population but represent 25 percent of the people suffering violent victimization.
Students in this age range offer emotional vulnerability. Their brains are not yet fully developed. In fact, the brain is not fully developed until around the age of 25.
Because of that vulnerability, the most common lures to teens are attention and affection.
The majority of victims of sex crimes through the internet are 13- to 15-year-old girls.
When victims were asked, “Why? Why were you communicating with them?” 75 percent of the responses were “because they loved the person” who was abusing them.
Which is why Feigh stresses to parents to create a safety net. Her definition of a safety net is a minimum of five people that a child can go to talk to. Kids may feel embarrassed, afraid of consequences or shame when they talk to adults, so choose people they trust as their safety net.
So, how do we talk to our kids about safety at an early age without scaring them?
Hold a family safety night. It should be all things safety: fire, weather, identify trusted adults (safety net), talk about your “What if” scenarios, make safety rules, create a safety word, discuss touch–what is a clean healthy touch versus not.
Feigh and the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center have a mission to completely stamp out child abuse within three generations. Let’s start with this one.
Alison Feigh is also an author of child safety books. Check out her available resources to start a safety conversation.
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