Safety Issues
When I was in High School I had a jacket with my name on it. While at an away game someone almost lured me outside of the game area because he knew my name. He almost convinced me that we knew each other, and at the last minute I realized that he knew my name because it was on my jacket. I have no idea what his intentions were and I’d just as soon not contemplate that. The point is that I was very confused by the fact that he knew my name. I still remember being positive that I’d never met him before and I remember that he was creeping me out, but then there was the fact that he knew my name and seemed to know a few other things about me (that I now realize were probably pretty easy to guess).
Because of this I am adamant that my child not have anything with her name on it. My mother thinks I’m being silly. She was in the process of making my daughter a book bag with her name on it when I interceded. I’ve talked about my mother’s control issues on this blog before, she tried to point out to me that I’d said no clothes with her name on it, and this wasn’t clothes. I didn’t really care. The bookbag now says “My Bookbag”.
I have to wonder - is there something else this simple out there that I should be doing that I’m not? Without my experience in high school my mom would have probably put my daughter’s name on a dozen or so things by now and I’d have never thought twice about it. Is there something else that I’m doing (or allowing) that is putting her at risk?
I don’t know. I just have to watch out for her safety as best I can and hope I’m doing everything I should be doing.
May 16th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
I remember when I was a teenager I worked at an amusement park and saw a bunch of parents who had a stretchy cord from their wrists to their child’s wrist so they wouldn’t lose them. My first thought was “Oh Please”. I told my mom about it and she told me when I was little she had me in a harness that had a strap in the back that she could hold on to like a leash. She said a lot of people used them. I couldn’t believe it! She said I was old enough to walk on my own but too young to understand “You must hold Mama’s hand”. So I guess I was around 1 or 2 years old. She said as soon as I learned “Hold my hand or we’re going home (or I’m going to pick you up or whatever)” then she didn’t use the harness anymore. And sure enough I found some pictures with me in this white harness! Well, I was rather outraged! Now that its 20 years later and I’m going to get my own little one soon I can completely understand where she was coming from. I haven’t seen anyone around where I live with harnesses on their kids, but I have seen frantic mothers looking for their lost child in a store and I just feel awful for them and I think “Well, maybe I could start a new trend?” We’ll see…..
May 19th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
This is something all parents should realize - thanks for posting it.
May 26th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
I also was told to be careful how you children’s room look from outside the house. They used to have stickers that you could put on your children’s bedroom window in case of a fire so they would know where to look for children. Once we got our daughter, I contacted them and asked about the sticker. The fire deparement said that they discontinued this because child predators could find out what window leads to a young child.
Twice in the last month our small city has had two young children assulted in their bedrooms, but the children were smart enough to scream and scare the intruder away (one was only 4). I make sure that there is nothing that says “a little girl sleeps in this room” from outside!!!
May 31st, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Good point Texas Twosome.
We’re okay in that regard since our child’s room is in the back part of the house… but when we add another child that may not continue to be the case. If there are obviously juvenile curtains then they will be lined so that they don’t show up that way from the outside.
June 14th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
I’m amazed at the stickers parents put on their car with their children’s name and activity. They generally even include which group they are with which makes me think a predator could look up the game schedule for that group. I don’t want to be too protective either, but this one seems to give more information than I am comfortable with.
July 28th, 2006 at 6:58 am
We always had a family password. We were told that if anyone tried to pick us up from school or wherever, we were to ask them for the family password and only go with them if they knew it. None of us ever had to use it (I can’t imagine my mom sending someone to pick us up that we didn’t know!), but it was a good safety net and would have worked in a situation like yours.