Florida Catholic | How To Keep Your Child As Safe As Possible

How to keep your child as safe as possible

Published: 05.06.08

My dear friends,

Being a parent has never been easy, but I cannot help but think that the task is much harder today.

For one thing, stay-at-home moms, in general, are a thing of the past. Most children today grow up in households where both parents must work to make ends meet – that is, if they are fortunate enough to have both parents, as so many households are headed by single moms who struggle mightily to put food on the table.

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• To enroll in a Virtus “Protecting God’s Children” session, call Jan Rayburn, Virtus training coordinator, at 305-762-1250 or e-mail her a jrayburn@theadom.org.

• The schedule of upcoming training sessions (in English, Spanish and Creole) is posted here:
“Protecting God’s Children.”

• Anyone who wants to volunteer as a facilitator to train others in “Protecting God’s Children” should contact Rayburn at the phone number and e-mail above.

• Parents who are worried about knowing less than their children about the Internet can go to www.virtus.org to pick up tips for Internet safety and even look up the meaning of popular Internet abbreviations.

Whether widowed, divorced or married, most parents today are faced with the difficult task of finding someone to care for their children while they work. The lucky ones can rely on relatives or grandparents, if they live nearby. But many parents must leave their children in day care or with baby sitters, at least until they are old enough to go to preschool.

Once they are in school, the problem arises of what to do with the children during the long summer vacation. If the solution is some sort of camp – either out of state or daylong – that entails its own problems. Who will be taking care of the children while they are at camp? Will they be safe? Are the counselors trained and certified in first aid, at least? Have they undergone a background check for criminal activity?

Parents who cannot afford a summer camp face other problems, chief among them deciding at what age, in our crime-ridden society, is it safe to leave children home alone?

Then there is the double-edged sword of technological advances: Television, video games, cell phones, instant messaging and the Internet all are useful tools for learning, entertaining and keeping in touch.

But television and video games, when used excessively, are harmful to children’s growing minds and psyches. As for text messaging and the Internet, there is nothing on this earth that cannot be used for evil.

Newspaper headlines remind us every day of the perils of leaving children, especially teenagers, free to roam the chat rooms and social networking sites of the Internet.

Some children use these sites to spread gossip and say nasty things about their classmates. Some post pictures and videos that are entirely inappropriate. In the meantime, predators are free to roam these sites in order to befriend and “groom” future victims.

Some parents may succumb to a false sense of security, thinking no harm will come to their children as long as the communication between them and strangers remains “virtual.” But predators have a way of luring children into face-to-face meetings, and words that flash on a computer monitor can induce as much, if not more, heartache than taunts on a playground.

To make matters worse, most children are far more technologically savvy than their parents, and can often get around parental restrictions aimed at keeping them safe on the Web.

What are parents (or grandparents) to do?

Something that might help is an archdiocesan training program called “Protecting God’s Children.” This is part of Virtus, a nationwide program developed by insurance companies in response to the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.

The three-hour “Protecting God’s Children” training is mandatory for archdiocesan employees, be they clergy, religious or laity, and anyone who volunteers at archdiocesan schools or institutions.

But “Protecting God’s Children” is open to all people in our parishes and even people who are not Catholic. The goal of the program is to help adults spot the signs of potential abuse so that they can keep their children safe.

I encourage everyone, especially parents, to take advantage of these training sessions which are offered in our parishes and schools. After all, these are difficult times and parents need all the help they can get.

How to keep your child as safe as possible

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