The Safekeeping of Our Children – Part of Emergency Preparedness
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As a parent there is precious little to nothing that you would not do to keep your children safe from harm or accident. Day after day you labor to make sure they are fed, bathed, clothed, and sheltered. When they leave your sight to venture through the doors of your home out into the world village, you pray for them and hope that their guardian angels are on duty.
When your little one is a toddler in a department store in tow with you, in a moment you turn to find her and she is gone! Your heart skips several beats, you get breathless, and your blood pressure shoots up. Seconds later you spot her down another aisle playing with an item snatched from one of the store shelves. When your brood is a bit older and pass from your line of sight to go out and play, you hope they remember to look both ways before crossing the street.
When your children reach their teens they then are faced with other potential pitfalls. Pressures from their peers may weigh heavily upon them, and you hope the lessons taught in the home are not lost on them once they are offered substances that would be harmful to their bodies, minds, and spirits. Popularity contests are fierce, and weekend parties may include a crowd that you’d rather your youth didn’t associate with. Ventures into immoral traps may be their initiation into a clan that leads them down darkening paths.
Upon reaching adulthood you have much less influence on your now-grown children. Habits are formed and patterns are in place. There are forces both seen and unseen that act on our children as they advance through the stages of life and pass by the significant mileposts. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could be a fly on the wall to observe how they react and behave in given situations, and to see if they have developed the integrity to be their own person as opposed to blending in and just being part of the crowd?
Fortunately we can to a large extent check in and stay in touch with our children thanks to technologies that were unavailable to previous generations. A quick call or a text or instant message brings them a lot closer to us without them feeling they are on a leash. And in the event our children are unlawfully taken from us by kidnapping, there is also a survival method that can track their every move and assist law enforcement in their recovery much like On Star detects and tracks an accident with an automobile.
Coming full circle– now back to the beginning: we feed, bathe, clothe, and shelter our children. As parents we wish to bestow upon them every good gift. To what lengths then would we go for the establishment of their safekeeping and security? Let us take every opportunity afforded us to provide for their well being and keep them safe from harm. The ability to track them should they be taken from us is something that every parent who has had an Amber Alert sent out for their child would wish they had.