Protecting the Gift Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe and Parents Sane
Protecting the Gift Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe and Parents Sane
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)
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars 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.
5 Stars 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 working with your child to learn to assess whether a “stranger” is ok to talk to. He gives great examples and tips
The middle to end of the book gets a little slow going but it is definitely the kind of book you can skip around and go back to at different times.
5 Stars 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.
4 Stars 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, and provided some good strategies for dealing with these risks and, more importantly, teaching children to deal with these risks themselves. I felt like I could take much of the advice in this book and apply it directly to my own kids.
I didn’t like the fact that so many of the anecdotes in this book were taken directly from “The Gift of Fear,” which I read immediately before this book. It felt like the author had cheated, using recycled stories instead of digging up something new to illustrate his points.
In general, though, I found this book much more useful for my specific situation than his previous book.
5 Stars 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.
Filed under: Parenting Books