Child Kidnapping

Child Kidnapping 

There has been a lot of publicity about missing children in recent years. Many (some say most) of the children who disappear are kidnapped by a divorced, non-custodial parent who feels unfairly deprived. Many others are teenagers, most of them girls, who run way because they feel unloved or unfairly treated. Of the runaways, the young ones soon reveal that they are runaways or give themselves up. The older ones may evade detection and use this path for leaving home for good.

Some people have recommended fingerprinting in response to this. If you want your child fingerprinted, despite the extremely minute chance that it would ever be useful, I suggest that you say something such as, "I' d like you to get fingerprinted because everyone's fingerprints are different, just like pictures of people's faces, and if you should ever get lost this would help us to find you." In other words, you don't have to get involved in talk about kidnapping in order to talk about fingerprinting.

Of course, all children should be taught never to go anywhere with a stranger, no matter what the stranger tells them, as soon as the children are old enough to leave their homes by themselves.