Book Review:
Protecting the Gift:
Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (And Parents Sane)
by Gavin de
Becker
Softcover,
336 pages
Available from LLLI for a limited time
No. 1615-7, $11.95 (Leader Price $10.76)
Reviewed by
Lani M. Siciliano
CT USA
From: LEAVEN, Vol. 40 No. 6, December 2004 - January 2005, p. 132.
Has a mother ever asked you
for advice on selecting a day care center, nanny, or babysitter? Or
maybe you have heard mothers express their fears of losing their newly
walking toddler in a crowd. What about the questions you, your co-Leaders,
or other mothers have regarding when a child is ready to walk to school
alone or ride his bike to a friend’s house? Gavin de Becker’s
book, Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (And
Parents Sane) is the book to recommend for all of the above scenarios.
We see and hear the AMBER
alerts for abducted children, see pictures of missing children on the
sides of milk cartons, and maybe have even had our own children fingerprinted
at a local police safety program "just in case." DeBecker
reminds us that stranger abductions are the least of our concerns. In
fact, fewer than 100 US children a year (out of 70 million) are estimated
to have been kidnapped by strangers. The issue isn’t strangers
versus acquaintances; it is learning who to trust and who not to trust,
whether we know them or not.
But all of these things reinforce
our fears that the world is not a safe place, especially for our children.
Many of us may feel overwhelmed by the reality of this, to the point
of not doing anything constructive to truly protect ourselves or our
families. Reading this book may help.
Protecting the Gift is an
empowering book offering recommendations on teaching children how to
stay safe from violence. To my delight, the author believes that the
main source of safety is intuition. "As you understand how intuition
helps protect your children," de Becker writes, "You’ll
react to smoke and not wait for fire. You’ll care less about protocol
and politeness, and you’ll be comfortable saying and doing what
needs to be said and done." He says to trust our mothers’
intuition and listen to internal warnings while they are still whispers.
As LLL Leaders, we encourage
new mothers to listen to their instincts and to trust their instincts
because they know their baby best. As children get older, parents need
to continue to listen to this inner voice to ensure their own safety
and their children’s safety. Rather than telling themselves "it’s
probably nothing," de Becker points out that "intuition about
our children is always right in at least two ways: It is always based
on something, and it always has your child’s best interest at heart."
Unfortunately we don’t
want to believe anyone would or could hurt our child(ren) and denial
protects us from this unwanted information by hiding or blocking our
ability to see things as they truly are. The author lists signs of denial
and discusses how we can best recognize if we are in denial already.
After reading about denial, if you recognize the signs in yourself,
you can peel back those layers to get closer to the truth, and get back
to your instincts to prevent a problem from happening in the future.
But you also don’t want to teach children to be fearful. Fearful
children are easily exploited. Being afraid or experiencing excessive
worry is caused by the idea that we cannot protect ourselves. We need
to know that, as parents, we have the ability to deal with danger—and
so do our children.
To that end, de Becker offers
clear guidelines, interview questions, points to review, etc., when
selecting caregivers such as nannies or babysitters, choosing a day
care facility; knowing the school is safe for your child, and more.
Twelve questions to help parents determine if their children are ready
to be out in public on their own are outlined, as well as information
on safety-training programs for children that can be done at home or
school.
Much more is included in
this book for parents with children from birth through adulthood. This
is an ongoing reference book for parents—one that will remain on
my personal bookshelf for years to come.
Lani M. Siciliano lives
in Connecticut, USA with her husband, Joseph, and her three children
Samuel (5), Matthew (3), and Kyra (1). They are expecting the arrival
of their fourth child in 2005. Lani is the Area Conference Supervisor
for LLL of Connecticut and has been a Leader for three years. Christine
McNeil Montano is the Contributing Editor for Leaven Book Reviews. She
lives in Connecticut, USA with her husband, Tony, and their sons, Jay
and John.
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:31:08 UTC 2007.
