Child Abuse: When to become “Involved”

When do you report child abuse and to whom? It is not our job to determine if child abuse is taking place. It is our job to speak for the children who may not be able to speak for themselves or get anyone to hear them.

What about all the horror stories about families and lives being destroyed by false accusations? If you have concerns for a child’s safety or well being it is not a false accusation. Truth be known, more child abusers slip through the cracks then innocent people are found “harmful” to their children.

AS ADULTS WE NEED TO PROTECT KIDS NOT OTHER ADULTS.

If you think there is some type of abuse going on – proof or no proof – go with your gut on this one, call children’s aid and let them know how you feel and why. It is their job to determine if there is abuse or danger to the child. An abuser is going to hide what they are doing so you may only have hints and small incidences to go on. If something feels wrong it probably is.

If you see abuse – then you call the police and report it so there is a record of the abuse, time and date. The police will bring in Children’s Aid but you may want to call C.A. as well.

If a child is in severe danger – call the police. Bring attention to what is happening. Get as many people as possible to intervene for the safety of the child.

If you saw a baby or a child locked in a hot or freezing car you would do what you had to to rescue the child. Why should it be any different if someone is beating a child or abandoning their children for days on end, or “just” hurting them in ways that don’t leave marks?

We are the adults and it is time we placed innocent children before strangers, friends and even family.

There is nothing worse then looking into the eyes of a child you could have saved but did not. Unless it is knowing a child died because you did not want to get involved.

School safety, who can pick up your child?

Who can pick up your child from school? Do you know what the pick up procedure is at your school? How well are those policies followed? I was watching a Dr. Phil episode about children being picked up or kidnapped from their school. In both cases the policies that are in place to protect the kids were not followed. As a parent I need to know what the procedures are and how well are they followed. How do you test your school?

What can we do to keep our kids safe? One thing to do is let our kids know what to do if someone tries to pick them up from school. One solution is to tell the child to refuse to go unless the person knows your safe word. A word only you and your child know. Your child should also know that just because a teacher says this person is here to pick you up does not mean it is ok to go. They can say NO to the teacher and not go with that person until the person gives them the word or they have talked with you over the phone.

It is funny but both kids had been told by their parents not to go with strangers, but they went anyway because the teacher told them that this man was here to pick them up. At no point was the identity of the man taking the child established. This was a definite breach of policy. So you can have the best policies in place but they are only as good as the person enforcing them.

It is not good enough to have great policies you have to enforce them as well. There are real consequences here. If someone is kidnapping a child from school chances are they don't have the best interest of the child in mind. As a parent we need to make sure the policies are being enforced, even if it is inconvenient for parents and the teachers. It is a lot more inconvenient to have to search for your child then it is to show some id when picking them up.

At our kids pre-school no one is aloud to pick up our kids unless they are on the list of people we have authorized to pick them up. On top of that they have to have verbal confirmation from us prior to pick up, otherwise the person cannot take them from the school. So we have to pre-arrange for anyone other then us to pick up our kids. Then the person has to show id proving that they are the person that they claim to be. There is only one door that people are aloud to go in or out and it is manned at all times. You have to be buzzed in. They have a great system, one of the better ones in our area. However, this fall our son is going to real school and we have to establish the schools pick up policies. I expect that they are not as secure as the preschool. Now we have to teach our son what to do if someone other then us tries to take him from school. I hope he does a lot better then the two kids that were taken from school by strangers.

Who is to blame when it comes to underage drinking and sex?

There are underage boys and girls getting ID’s that gives them preserved legal ages. They use these to get into clubs, bars and buy alcohol. This is bad enough. They are out drinking and partying and doing everything we as parents don’t want them to be doing. Now for the most part it is kids 16 and older doing this but there are kids as young as 13 getting into bars. They look older then they are and the have the ID to back it.

There needs to be some changes with whom we hold responsible for the results. Do we need to start cracking down on the stores that are selling the ID, the bars and stores selling the alcohol, the parents or the kids? Usually it is the bar or store selling alcohol that pays the price, or fine. What about the store that made the ID for kids in the first place. What consequences do they have to face? These kids are not blameless; they are the ones who get the fake ID in the first place.

Then you have the poor smuck who thinks the kid is of age and has sex with him or her. Who pays the price there? Sure there are people praying on the underage, but if you think you are with someone who is legal, and they have the ID to prove it, who is responsible here? Who gets the label pedophile and jail time? Not the kid. This is where an innocent gets to pay the consequences. There needs to be a change in the law to respond to this type of instance. There is a large difference between someone knowingly having sex with a minor and someone having a one-night stand with someone they think is 21. They should not be treated the same.

So who is responsible? Those that provide the fake ID should be hit the hardest. Making it harder to get the ID that tricks people makes sense to me. Clubs, bars and stores that sell alcohol should be next if they knowingly sell to a minor, the fake ID should not be held against them if it is of good quality. You should not be penalized for selling to someone you think is legal. Same for the person who has sex with the 21 year old who is actually 14 but looks 21 and has the ID to prove it. How can that person be held responsible for having sex with a minor when all the information they had said otherwise?

That leaves the parents and the kids. How much blame should be placed on the parents of kids who are out at bars, clubs or buying booze? Should they not know what is going on and where their kids are? Sure ask that of the parent whose kid slips out of the house once everyone is asleep or the one who’s kid is supposedly at a sleepover or working. There is a point where you just do not have the control and yet somehow you, the parent, are being held responsible for your teenager’s actions. This one I have a hard time with because in one way a parent is responsible for their children but at the same time I feel that there are circumstances that the parents have done everything that can be reasonably expected and then some.

So whom should the responsibility fall on, the teenagers getting the fake ID’s in the first place! They are knowingly breaking the law and should be the ones to deal with the law, not the people they are tricking. This is not some innocent kid in the wrong place at the wrong time. They had to go out and get the ID made with the intent to use it to break the law. There should be some consequences for these kids to face, Juvenal jail time or something. It is fraud and should be treated as such. These are not innocent victims and should not be treated as such. The bars, clubs, stores, sex partners and parents for the most part are the victims here.

From the time I was 12 years old I could get into bars, clubs and buy alcohol at the liquor store with out ID. I looked as if I was in my 20 with out make-up on. I was not carded once until one week before my 18th birthday. In Canada 18 years is legal to buy alcohol. At age 13 I had 20-year-old guys and older trying to date me thinking I was the same age as them, and I was not in a bar or club at the time. If I could do this without ID think about how much easer it is with fake ID. The irony is that I don’t drink, then or now, nore did I go to clubs or bars when I was under age. At 12 I went into the liquor store to pick up some brandy for the Christmas cakes I was making and was able to get help picking it out and then bought it with out being questioned or carded. So my Mother would send me in to get her alcohol well she went shopping. A few times she took me to bars and clubs and found it funny that no one thought twice about letting me in. What could I have gotten away with at that age today with a fake ID?

Balancing a Child’s safety with the need for free exploration: parenting past and present.

Balancing a child’s safety with the need for free explorations is handled differently today then it was in the past. Why, because each generation has learned from the mistakes of the last generation and technology has changed. Sure we don’t let our kids play in the kitchen when we cook, we put gate up so they cannot get in. Why, because too many kids were burned and we learned to do things differently. We don’t let our kids bike with out a helmet, or at least the helmet is on when we can see them. Why, because we like our kids to not have brain injuries. We keep our kids wired to us by cell phones and some times GPS trackers. Why, don’t we trust our kids? Yes, about as much as our parents trusted us and I am sure if my Mom could have put a GPS on me back then she would have. This gives us some feeling of safety for our kids as kids can be and are picked up off the streets every day.

Does keeping your child out of the kitchen when you cook prevent them from learning hot don’t touch, or this is how you make dinner? No, they can still observe out of harms way and we can do other activities together that teach in a less harmful environment. Does making your child put their helmet on when biking hold them back, no. Is making them call you at specific times on their cell prevent them from exploring the world, no but it lets them know that you care about them. In some ways it even lets them explore more, we can find them or check in with them at any time, it just takes a call and we know what is going on. Or as much as they tell us, there is still trust issues out there.

I am not saying that our parents did not try to keep us safe, just that our perceptions of what needs to be done to keep our kids safe is different. I am sure our children will also have a different view on what is safe and what is not. Parents in the past said, “Don’t put any thing into the electric socket”, we say the same thing but now have little plug caps to put into them to help remove the temptation. Trust me if a kid is determined to stick some thing into the electric outlet they will find a way. But that is why we tell our kids not to and have better fuses to shut off the electricity if they do. We still tell our kids, don’t play by the pool, and don’t go in the pool if we are not with you. However, we now put fences up with motion detectors on the gate and special motion detectors on the pool to give us warning if someone is in the water.

We have better ways of keeping our children safe now; it does not hamper our children’s need for free exploration. We are not keeping our kids from exploring; we are just making sure it is in a safer environment. We don’t leave guns, or matches in places where kids can get to them and tell them don’t play with that, it is not a toy. We lock them up (the guns and matches, not the kids). Our kids can still learn that guns and matches are not a toy with out being put into a situation where they harm themselves or others. I like to think that we have come a long way from the time of having seat belts but not using them to having car seats and buster seats with special belting to keep them safe.

About 10 years ago my friends parents where babysitting their grandson. He had just started to go from crawling to trying to pull himself up. The Grandmother made her husband his tea like usual. She boiled the water, put the bag in and then put it on the end table by the couch. The little boy used that table to pull himself up. The table fell, the hot tea burned him so bad he had to go to the hospital for 3rd degree burn treatment and his chest will be scarred for life. As a result of this I always made sure I used a travel mug with a lid around my kids, that I took my cup with me when I left a room, or made sure it was in a high, secure place. My kids learned my cup was hot and that they were not to touch it. Did I stop putting my cup in a safe place, no, just for my own peace of mind. I learned from the mistakes of others, as I hope my children will learn from my mistakes.

So who is standing outside your door, and how safe are you?

Today I had to think about how smart I am when it comes to me knowing verses using safety tips. What made me question it? My kids were looking out the window saying that some one was banging on our door. I looked out the window and called for my husband to come up from the basement. Then I opened the door, why, the guy had a uniform on and looked official. I was thinking that there was another problem with the water pipes like last weekend. It turns out he was one of those pushy sales guys that go door to door for Union Energy. He would not leave until my husband came up and said no thank you. James then asked me why I had called him. “There was a strange guy at our door, of course I want you to come up just in case.”

Then I thought about it. If it was dark I would not have opened my door, I would have talked through the door until I knew what the guy wanted. I know better then to open the door, today I failed the test. I opened it because I saw the official looking uniform, though I did not know what or who the guy was. Safety 101 you don’t open your door to strangers until you identify them and what they want, and sometimes you still check with the company if they want into your home. We teach this to our children, but I the adult did not follow a simple guideline. Just because it looks like a cop, UPS, flower delivery or pizza delivery does not mean the uniform is not a rental. If you are not expecting someone delivering something then are they lost or something else?

One of the most common ways thieves are able to walk around a neighbourhood looking for a home to break into is to have some type of uniform on. This way people don’t even give them a second glance. They must be there for a reason. It makes it easy to go to a door and see if anyone is home. If someone sees them going around the house looking for way to get in, they are just looking for a meter, or some damage or something. Though most people will not even think about checking why they are there. It is a great way to case a house or even break in if the opportunity is there.

Then you have the wonderful knowledge that they don’t care if you are home or not, if you open the door bam you have a home invasion. Now I don’t live in a rich area, and we don’t have a lot so I don’t think we have to worry too much about someone doing a home invasion. But at the same time we do know that there is a building with drug dealers about four blocks away. A person on drugs, or in need of drugs is not thinking clearly and will be happy to get enough money for the next fix. So who is standing at your door?

I am not trying to scare people, just make them more aware of simple things to try to keep our selves safer. If someone is at your door and is planning to rob you, they are also planning to hurt you. Otherwise they would break in when you are not home. Now most home invasions are a crime of opportunity. If you open the door they are in, if not they move onto the next home or apartment. If you are the target they are going to get into your home even if you don’t open the door, but at least the door will slow them down a little. At that point in time robbery is probably not the main crime on their minds and all you can do is try to get yourself and your family away from them and hopefully you have a cell to call 911.

What made my brain start thinking about this, the guy walked past our window about ½ hr later. Then about 20 minutes later the police were out in the back looking around all the homes and seemed to be looking for clues. The timing just made me think about how stupid I had been for opening the door to a stranger, in uniform or not.

Why get a Credit report for your child?

I was watching the Montel show about identity theft and learned something new today. Sure I used to laugh when my husband would save our mail and shred it, I don’t now. I never thought about my credit or getting a credit report at all, let alone every 6 months. Check my bank account and credit card balance at least once a day, why would I do that, I knew what I spent. Cut the pin code off of an old credit card and dispose of it at a latter date, what cutting the card in half was not enough? My husband is having the last laugh now, because what he has always done is what we need to do now to keep our identity and credit for ourselves.

Over the years I have learned how to protect myself from fraud and identity theft. Why because I was victim of fraud and did not know for three years. I ended up having to declare bankruptcy after spending over five years trying to get my money back and clear up debts that were not even mine. I will have to spend years rebuilding my credit because I trusted the wrong person. My ability to give my children what they need has been limited by someone’s greed. I was lucky that the person only took my money, stock from my business and my trust. At this point in time I believe my identity is my own, but that may change as I rebuild my credit. I don’t know how much of my information he took as he had access to everything. It may be just a matter of time before I suddenly have credit cards and bank loans I never took out. I don’t know if he sold my information to others or not. It is just a matter of keeping an eye on things and hoping that if nothing has been used in the last seven years nothing will.

So I do everything I can to make sure that I don’t get taken again. However, I never thought to get a credit report for my kids. Today I learned that if someone has a SIN # they are at risk. Even a two year-old can have a credit card issued or a bank loan. There are quite a few cases where parents used their kid’s information to get credit cards and loans and years latter the kids had to deal with the consequence. I would never do that and I never thought about someone else using my children’s information to get credit. It took me a bit to rap my head around the idea of someone destroying a child’s credit, their ability to get a loan to go to collage, or get their first car, or their first apartment. That is just evil, but then they don’t care about anyone but themselves. We as adults need to protect our children and grandchildren as well as ourselves.

So what can you do to protect your children? Get a credit report for your children and yourself every 6 months. Your childs credit report should be that there is nothing to report. If you can join something like lifelock, an identity and fraud protection company. I only know about that one from their ads, I am sure there are other companies out there. See if they have a plan for children or a family rate. Protect your children’s information as you do your own. Shred your mail, have a mailbox with a lock and do not give information out. Treat information as a valuable resource that can be used against you, protect it or destroy it before someone uses it. We want to protect our kids from everything we can and now we just have to add this to the list.

PS: I have just been informed of Identity Theft Shield provided by Pre-Paid Legal Services Inc. for Canadians. Information about this can be found at www.identity-shield.ca.

Security blanket: Key to baby sleeping all night?

No a security blanket can aid a baby sleeping all night but it is not what will get your baby to sleep. There are several things that you need to help your baby develop good sleeping habits, consistency and routines. The most important thing you need is consistency. This is very important, being consistent allows a child to anticipate or know what is going to happen next. This reduces anxiety and stress and will increases the feeling of safety in the child.

So what do you need to keep consistent? Bed time and bed time routines. Do the same things at the same time in the same order every night. If you do that then the child knows what is coming next and knows what is expected from them. So you may have bath, toothbrush, bed clothing, story, sleep time. You may also want to see who is training whom. If your child wakes up a half hour after you put them to bed every night, and you pick them up and rock them for 10 minutes, guess what, it is part of their bedtime routine. It is just not part of the bedtime routine you made.

It is much harder to break bad bedtime routines then it is to establish good ones in the first place. That means every one involved has to be on the same page, all care givers. If you have a routine and some one is not fallowing it this can cause problems. Every one needs to know what the routine is and do it. It is work to establish the routine, and then remain consistent. As a new parent you will find you have to give up a lot of “your” time to get the routine working. You give up TV shows, couple time, and just about any thing you can think up. It is worth putting the time into establishing a routine and being consistent with it. It is much harder to have to break the bad bedtime habits so do the hard work now so you can have peace latter. Please note that as your child gets older the routine will need to have some changes but your and your child will work that out when the time comes.

The security blanket is just part of the routine. It also can make transitions easer. It is just a tool though, not the solution. Can they help yes, but only as long as you have a set routine and are consistent with it. There are a lot of things that can be added to a bedtime routine that can help your child go to sleep. Warm milk before brushing teeth, warm bath with lavender, soft music playing on the radio, a foot rub, or a nightlight can all help. Each child is different so you will have to find out what works with yours. Just do not expect a special toy or blanket to suddenly make bedtime easer or no longer stressful.

Here are a few tricks I learned;
1) Have the child or children turn the TV or video game off and keep it off during the bedtime routine.
2) Have the child clean up their toys and put them to bed (away), it makes it easer for them to stop playing and get ready for bed. It is a way to help with the transition.
3) Give a non-sugary snack just before toothbrush; this gets rid of the “I am hungry” at bedtime. If they still say that you can say – “No you are not, you just had a snack” and not feel guilty for putting your kid to bed hungry.
4) Have a cup of water with a lid on it already by the bed. Thirsty, fine have a drink.
5) Read a book with your child or children at bedtime, this will usually give them some Mom/Dad time and let them calm down for bed.
6) Have a little light or nightlight so they are not afraid of the dark.
7) Do a monster check with your child before they get into their bed.
8) Let them know were you will be, such as in the living room, so they are reassured that you will be around if they need you. It is a small thing, but it helps.
9) The hardest thing to do is to let them cry. As long as they are not hurt, or sick, or need to go to the bathroom, let them cry. Reassure them that you are in the home; don’t yell at them as that always makes it worse.

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