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

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.

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.

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.

A necessary but sometimes unsettling book for parents, grandparents, caretakers, etc., of children and teens. This book is full of great information to help us keep all children safe.

I bought this book after a friend recommended it and now I'm recommending it to everyone. As the mother of two young girls, I always worry about something happening to one or both of them. This book provides real, practical advice to keep your children safe from inappropriate sexual advances, molestation and even kidnapping. It helps you talk through these touchy issues with your children and offers tips and tools to arm them with in the even they are separated from you in a store or find themselves in a dangerous situation. It also gives you checklists of things to ask when your child is going off to play at a new friend's house. The subject matter is frightening to face, but De Becker approaches it factually and realistically . This is a fantastic, must-read for anyone who has children in their life that they want to keep safe.