Books : Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane)

Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 649.1
EAN: 9780440509004
ISBN: 0440509009
Label: Dell
Manufacturer: Dell
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: 2000-05
Publisher: Dell
Release Date: May 09, 2000
Studio: Dell
Sales Rank: 36516

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Product Description:
Safety skills for children outside the home
Warning signs of sexual abuse
How to screen baby-sitters and choose schools
Strategies for keeping teenagers safe from violence

All parents face the same challenges when it comes to their children's safety: whom to trust, whom to distrust, what to believe, what to doubt, what to fear, and what not to fear. In this empowering book, Gavin de Becker, the nation's leading expert on predicting violent behavior and author of the monumental bestseller The Gift of Fear, offers practical new steps to enhance children's safety at every age level, giving you the tools you need to allow your kids freedom without losing sleep yourself. With daring and compassion, he shatters the widely held myths about danger and safety and helps parents find some certainty about life's highest-stakes questions:

How can I know a baby-sitter won't turn out to be someone who harms my child? (see page 103)
What should I ask child-care professionals when I interview them? (see page 137)
What's the best way to prepare my child for walking to school alone? (see page 91)
How can my child be safer at school? (see page 175)
How can I spot sexual predators? (see page 148)
What should I do if my child is lost in public? (see page 86)
How can I teach my child about risk without causing too much fear? (see page 98)
What must my teenage daughter know in order to be safe? (see page 191)
What must my teenage son know in order to be safe? (see page 218)
And finally, in the face of all these questions, how can I reduce the worrying? (see page 56)

Amazon.com Review:
Be warned: In many ways this is a terrifying book. It deals with a subject--violence against children--that most of us never want to consider. But, as Gavin de Becker stresses, such situations, though rare, can occur, so all parents must deal with the facts in order to protect their children properly. De Becker's aim is to create awareness of potential dangers and provide parents with the knowledge necessary for prevention and control. As he emphatically states in Protecting the Gift, much of this knowledge is already hard-wired in the form of intuition: "This natural ability is deep, brilliant, powerful. Nature's greatest accomplishment, the human brain, is stunningly efficient when its host is at risk, but when one's child is at risk, it moves to a whole new level, one we can justifiably call miraculous." The trick, he stresses, is trusting and acting on intuition.

In this valuable, even necessary, book, he shatters many myths about the typical profiles of regular offenders and the prevalence of such problems as sexual abuse and kidnapping. He also deconstructs the wisdom of traditional maxims such as "Never talk to strangers" and "If you are ever lost, go to a policeman." Without offering a compendium of every conceivable danger, he identifies warning signals and real risks that are often easy to spot once you know what to look for. He offers practical advice on recognizing signs of sexual abuse, choosing a baby sitter or nanny, how to prepare kids for walking to school alone, and how to teach children about potential risks without making them afraid to venture out of the house. And he continually stresses that denial and ignoring intuition are the biggest mistakes that parents make in protecting their kids from those that mean them harm. Well written and infinitely informative, Protecting the Gift affords parents more confidence and less reason for unnecessary worry. --Shawn Carkonen

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- should be required reading for all parents
Fantastic book. A little hard to read at first, due to the nature of the subject, but stick with it and become a better parent.

Rating:

- A must for all Parents
This is an excellent eye-opening book that proves useful to parents of boys or girls in all ages groups.
Great to keep as a resource.

Rating:

- great safety tips on keeping children safe
I love Gavin de Becker's perspective on teaching safety to children. He has some ideas that buck what a lot of parents know to be the norm when teaching safety. For example - if a child is lost he likes to teach them, instead of finding a police officer, to find a mother... that a woman with children is less likely to be a predator, and more likely to stay with the child until their parent is found. Another example is his stand on the whole "never talk to strangers" philosophy. He instead advocates ... Read More

Rating:

- Useful Information
Piggybacking on the message of his earlier book, "The Gift of Fear," Gavin De Becker's "Protecting the Gift" is an informative look at how we can keep children and teenagers from becoming victims. The author draws on his extensive history as a child abuse victim himself, and his career as a security expert, to give practical advice to concerned parents.

As a concerned parent myself, this book was enlightening and reassuring. It stated the possible risks that might face children and adolescents, ... Read More

Rating:

- Yes, We Must Protect Our Children !
Keeping our children safe from physical and mental harm is every parents' priority...this book beautifully addresses specific things that every parent can do to safeguard kids. Another book high on my list to protect our children is Bully-Proofing Children: A Practical, Hands-On Guide to Stop Bullying which is all about raising strong, resilient and empowered kids who will not become bullies or victims.

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