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

Capa
Dial Press, 1999 - 336 páginas
"I commit that by the end of this book, you'll know more and be uncertain less; see more and deny less, accept more and hesitate less; act more and worry less. How can I be so sure? Because if nature selected you for the job of protecting a child, odds are you're up to it."--Gavin de Becker
In his groundbreaking bestseller The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker showed millions of readers that like every creature on earth, human beings can predict violent behavior. Now, in Protecting the Gift, de Becker empowers parents to trust fully their own intuition when it comes to their children's safety.
In this indispensable resource, de Becker provides keen insights into the behavior and strategies of predators. He offers practical new steps to enhance children's safety at every age level: specific questions parents can ask to screen effectively and evaluate baby-sitters, day-care services, schools, and doctors; a "Test of Twelve" safety skills children need before being alone in public; warning signs to help parents protect children from sexual abuse; and how to keep teenage girls and boys from unsafe situations with peers and adults. De Becker also shatters the myth that rules like Never Talk to Strangers will keep your children safe. By showing what danger really looks like--as opposed to what we might imagine it looks like--de Becker gives parents freedom from many common worries and unwarranted fears.
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. De Becker helps parents find some certainty about life's highest-stakes questions:
How can I know ababy-sitter won't turn out to be someone who harms my child?
What should I ask child-care professionals when I interview them?
What's the best way to prepare my child for walking to school alone?
How can my child be safer at school?
How can I spot sexual predators?
What should I do if my child is lost in public?
How can I teach my child about risk without causing too much fear?
What must my teenage daughter know in order to be safe?
What must my teenage son know in order to be safe?
And finally, in the face of all these questions, how can I reduce the worrying?
A generation ago, in Baby and Child Care, Dr. Benjamin Spock told parents that they already possessed most of the important knowledge about their children's health. Similarly, when it comes to predicting violence and protecting children, de Becker demonstrates that you already know most of what you need to know-- parents have, he says, "the wisdom of the species."

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Gavin de Becker is a personal security expert and leading authority on crime and violence predictions. De Becker was the Director of the Special Services Group during Reagan's presidency, and also served on the President's Advisory Board at the U. S. Department of Justice and on the domestic Violence Council Advisory Board. He wrote The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence, a book about trusting instincts in order to avoid dangerous situations. De Becker has written many articles and papers about his expertise and has appeared on such TV shows as The Larry King Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and 60 Minutes. De Becker was appointed to the President's Advisory Board at the U.S. Department of Justice twice and he served for two years on the Governor's Advisory Board at the California Department of Mental Health. He is a senior fellow at the UCLA School of Public Policy. As a consultant to government agencies, major corporations, and media figures, he has handled more than 25,000 cases. His firm, Gavin De Becker Incorporated, maintains files containing in excess of 350,000 pieces of material of threatening and obsessive communications. De Becker has been an expert witness in several high-profile legal cases, such as the O.J. Simpson case, the case against the assailant of actress Theresa Saldana, and the case against the murderer of actress Rebecca Schaeffer. De Becker's book, The Gift of Fear, has been published in 14 languages.

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