Child safety is never-ending job

It was a terrible scare when two children at Honowai Elementary School had what could have been a tragic encounter, saved only by the fortunate intervention of their mother. She arrived at the school on Monday just in time to see her kids get into a car driven by a man but, thankfully, followed the car and was able to block it, extricating her children, ages 7 and 5, safely.

Kidnapping is every parent’s worst fear, and yet some good has come from this week’s frightening Waipahu episode, still being investigated by police. That is, it serves as a warning to school families and staff about the vulnerability of children to predators, who hang out near schoolyards more often than they’d like to admit. It may come as a shock to members of the school community who think of the campus as a safe and familiar place, almost an extension of their own homes.

Parents may not put great stock in the need to prepare against a grim outcome that is, thankfully, rare. But preparation, by the child as well as the parents, is the only way to ensure that kidnapping remains a rare occurrence.

Now might be an opportune moment to take children aside and have that talk with them, whether as a refresher course or a first-time discussion.

Searching for the right words? The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (www.missingkids.com) has lots of advice on what to tell children who have occasion to go to and from school unaccompanied by an adult.

Here are a few tips:

» Children should take a friend with them when walking, biking or standing on the bus stop. Make sure they know their bus route number.

» They must never accept a ride from anyone not cleared to pick them up. Have ways to communicate with them should there be last-minute arrangements made.

» Make sure they know to get away, even yell for help, if anyone follows them or tries to take them. Making a scene is wholly appropriate here.

» The school office staff should be told if the child ever must leave school early.

» Shortcuts are risky. Lay out a safe route for them, going to and from school.

As for the most recent case, the children said the abductor told them their mother was in a doctor’s care as a lure to draw them in; kids need to know this is a favorite trick of these criminals.

For their part, Honowai administrators did the right thing in the wake of the event by sending letters home with children, including a number of similar tips.

In 2006, the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention studied 735 child-abduction murder cases in the U.S. and determined that more than 40 per-cent of the time, the children were victims of opportunity. In other words: They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Many such incidents can’t be avoided, but the Honowai case underscores the right strategy: making it as hard as possible for the predator to strike.

And simple, clear communications about how to keep safe, coming from school authorities as well as parents, can be the best way to bolster the security of Hawaii’s children.