Another Abducted Child
Last Friday a 9 year old child on her way to school was abducted. She was taken back to the apartment of James Batch, a convited sex offender that has been on run from authorities for more than a year for not registering as a sex offender.
The child was tied up and put in the closet of Batch, only to be released later in roughly the same spot she was taken earlier that morning. The horrifying event will forever live on in this childs mind, the only bright side of this was that she was not raped, beaten, killed or even worse stored away for 18 years.
After further investigation, it turns out that Mr. Batch had had several complaints filed against him by fellow residents complaining of him peeping in on them while they were getting dressed. My question is what in the world was the apartment complex thinking. They told the residents they needed to file reports with the police, I completely agree, however, they never took action themselves. What would they have done if this child had been seriously hurt, raped or even killed.
For nearly 20 years I have been working with children and families and it amazes me more than ever how oblivious our society, especially many parents are to the dangers that face our children. Many parents approach to keeping their children safe is to bury their head in the sand and refuse to discuss potential dangers with their child because they do not want to scare them. Even worse they feel because they live in a “Good Area of Town” that this type of issue would never happen to them.
Nearly 6-8 ago in our community, there was a teenage girl that was stalked in a Wal-Mart and then abducted by her car, raped and killed. We live in a very nice community in one of the fastest growing suberbs in the U.S. Many people thought this would never happen to them, however, it did, but you heard very little about it.
Our children are already under attack from forces that were not present just 5 short years ago. There are nearly 750,000 pedifiles and stalkers on the internet.
It is time for all parents to be more upfront with their children about potential dangers. There are many ways parents can address these dangers in non-threatening ways so they are not scaring their child but educating them.
I personally feel that all parents should enroll their children in a Martial Arts Program, teach them some self-defense and self-confidence. If a child has strong self-confidence and does not look like an easy target, predators will not pick on them. Predators look for easy targets and they are easy to spot.
Give children the tools to be successful in life, stop coddalling them to the point of failure.
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