Term Paper on "Child Safety the Safety of Children"

Term Paper 5 pages (1604 words) Sources: 1

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Child Safety

The safety of children is a great priority among parents. Every day the media demonstrates just how bad things could go in a worst case scenario. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, over 778,000 individuals go missing nationwide -- eighty percent are children under eighteen (Associated Press, 2009). It is no wonder why parents are consistently monitoring their children. Any slight distraction could lead to a potential danger. While sitting at a children's play area at the mall, I was able to observe the numerous parents interact with their children. Most importantly, I was able to closely watch how well these parents monitored their children in a public space.

The first parent I chose to observe was a mother who was there with her three children. They all ranged from the ages of about five to about two years old. She was there by herself and was very actively engaging with her two-year-old son. She played with him and the middle child, a boy who looked to be around three or four years old. This continued for about thirty minutes. In the meantime, the five-year-old girl played with the other children that were there. The girl was playing about twenty feet away from her mother. The mother was constantly looking up to keep an eye on her. She looked up about every one or two minutes to check and see if her oldest daughter was around. Her other two children did not leave her sight.

In this case, the mother did a pretty good job. She was constantly monitoring her oldest daughter who was not by her side. She also never took her eyes off of her two youngest children, unless it was to look up and find her five-year-old daughter. She kept her youngest children engaged so that they wouldn't stray away from her, especially at those ages where they could easily walk away from her in an instant. They are also less likely to scream or call out if a stranger approaches them. However, although the mother did monitor her youngest boys, the oldest girl was not being watched at all times. It can be impossible to constantly watch all children, but the one or two minutes that she was not looking at her, she could have either wandered away or have been taken. A safety suggestion for this mother could be to sit closer to where her five-year-old was playing. She will be more likely to notice a stranger approaching her daughter from this short distance.

The second parents I observed were a young couple with their three or four-year-old daughter. The mother was fully engaging with her daughter for about ten minutes, but she then sat down. Right when the mother sat down, the father stood up and started to play with the daughter. This alternation between the parents lasted for about thirty minutes. They never took their eyes off of their child. There was always someone there to play with her. She did not seem interested in playing with the other children which could have prompted her parents to play with her in the first place. Either way, they implemented one of the best tactics to prevent children from going missing: constant vigilance.

These parents did an outstanding job at monitoring their daughter. One of them always had their eyes on their daughter at any given moment. They both shared the responsibilities of watching her. This is a great strategy in maintaining the safety of children. There is minimal opportunity for the child to run off without being noticed. There is also no opportunity for child predators to get to them. There would be no recommendations in this case. They were both attentive parents who did what they could to keep their constant attention on their daughter. However, it is easier for two parents to take care of one child.

The third caregiver I watched was a grandmother who was monitoring a boy who seemed to be her grandson. He was about six years old and was quite active. The grandmother must have been in her sixties, so she sat down for the majority of the time. She did not really engage with the boy, since he was playing around with all of the other children, but she was always looking to see what he was doing. With the exception of maybe a couple of seconds at a time that the grandmother was not monitoring her grandson, she was pretty vigilant. The grandson was about twenty five to thirty feet away from her, but the play area was really crowded, so there was no other place for her to sit. This may have caused her to not move closer to where her grandson was playing.

This caregiver was a great one. Just like the second case I monitored, she made sure that she was always aware of her grandchild. The only suggestion that I could think of making is suggesting that she move closer to the child. She was quite a distance away, and being an elderly lady, she would not be able to react as quickly if someone were taking her grandson. Also, since the mall's play area was really crowded at the moment, another consideration that the caregiver should take is in being aware of her surroundings. With so many people around, a child could go missing without many people even noticing. Bad people blend into the crowd just as well as good people do, and with so many individuals present, one needs to pay extra attention to who is around.

The fourth set of parents that I observed were a lot younger than the other parents that I had seen up to that point. They had a two or three-year-old boy. The boy quickly bonded with another child that was at the play area and they immediately ran off. The parents however did not seem too concerned. They did not call after the boy nor did they make sure that the boy was not going to run off somewhere. They looked around for him about every five minutes. They were on their cell phone for the entire time. At times, the child was more than twenty five feet away from them, but they did not really notice. The child would periodically show up to where the parents were, but then he would quickly run off. The parents did not seem too worried though. It was as if they were already confident enough with their surroundings.

The young parents in this case were not as vigilant as they were supposed to be or as they should have been. Given the nature of the environment, the mall, they should have been more on the look-out. Although by the time that I began to observe this family the mall was not as busy as it previously was, anything could still have happened to the child. He could have walked away with someone or could have gotten lost; his parents would not have immediately noticed. A safety precaution that I would recommend for these parents would be to pay more attention to their child and pay less attention to their cell phones. Although their age could have been a great contributor to their lack of attention toward their son, they were still old enough to know that a two or three-year-old should be constantly monitored. At the very least, I would recommend that the parents sit closer to the boy next time. Even if they would have continued not really watching their son, they would have been at a closer distance, so any suspicious activity on the part of any stranger would have been immediately noticed.

The fifth set of parents that I observed actually consisted of a single father. He was there… READ MORE

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