Child safety and personalized belongings

By Brenda

Last week there was a human interest story in the newspaper featuring a mom who packs her children’s lunch and believes that parents should “take time to educate their kids on nutrition and pack healthy, appealing lunches daily.”

The article sited all the wonderful things the mom does to teach her elementary school children healthy eating habits. She mentioned how little it costs to pack a healthy lunch (a quarter lb. of cut up home-grilled chicken breast 47cents a half cup, five carrot sticks 16 cents, a cheese stick 33 cents, banana 43 cents and so on).

She’s clearly an awesome involved parent, is Vice President of her child’s Parent Teacher Organization, and classroom volunteer. Further down in the article, a picture was shown of their beautiful custom-designed lunch boxes and matching backpacks… and I cringed!

“AAHH what was she thinking?! ” Her children’s names were beautifully embroidered across the tops of the oh-so cute matching backpacks. Obviously, she doesn’t know that her children’s names are a powerful tool for child predators!

Please, for the safety of your children do not personalize any of their belongings on the outside ( any stranger can see their name and call the child by first name, thus confusing a child into believing someone knows them.)

Unfortunately, this includes getting rid of those cute license plates with their names on it for their bicycles. So, yes, let’s teach our precious kiddos the importance of keeping their bodies healthy on the inside but remember to do all you can to help keep them safe on the outside too!

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Girly becoming Womanly

Hi all!

So, I mentioned that I was going to have guest bloggers coming to this blog.

Thank goodness I named this blog thegirlyreports.com. I hadn’t realized back then that we would be having some new women on board. I suppose I should change it to the womanly reports but …eh…I’ll just keep it because really it’s just a name…

So, let me introduce you to a guest blogger. Her name is Brenda and she is a mom of two boys, ages 19 and 26. She resides on the Gulf Coast of Florida. A former Jersey Girl who fled the Garden State because of ridiculous property taxes, pollution, political corruption, and the ever-popular auto insurance rates.

She says, “It wasn’t easy making the big decision to leave our Victorian-style dream home on a beautiful piece of lakefront property, my BIG wonderful family, lifelong friends and Favorite pizza joint to move to Florida but it turned out to be the best decision we ever made!”

She pursued a career in teaching but ending up on a slightly different track. She founded LET’S B SAFE, her mission to create a safer world, one child at a time.

She wrote a book entitled Let’s B Safe

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A read-together book for school or home.
Addresses some of the most common child lures.
Teaches rules that every child must KNOW & FOLLOW!
Bumblebee character guides and praises children.
Fun-to-read…not scary.
Rhymes make the rules easy-to-remember.
Fully illustrated. Multi-cultural.
Includes a Parent/Teacher Review Guide.
Includes a Certificate of Achievement.
Helps busy parents get two things done at once…daily reading with your child & a safety lesson!

LET’S B SAFE combines Brenda’s passion for child safety with her desire to promote literacy. She works with schools to create innovative child safety and literacy programs, provides Parent/Teacher Workshops, corporate “Lunch & Learn” seminars and classroom-based programs for children.

She is the past chairperson for the New Jersey State Special Commission on Child Abuse & Missing Children in Passaic Cty., and has appeared on the cover of BUSINESS NEWS NJ as a 40 Under 40 Award Winner.

As a child safety advocate, Brenda is the founder of the K.O.P.S. (Kids on Patrol for Safety) FOUNDATION, a 501(c)3 non-profit for at-risk youth ages 8-13. She is proud to have worked to help pass legislation designed to protect children from predators including: Joan’s Law signed by former NJ Governor Whitman and The Child Predator Protection Act signed by former President Clinton.

Brenda has a Masters Degree in Education with ESOL, Reading and ESE K-12 Certifications along with 14 years experience as a child safety specialist and advocate for children. She is also a Guardian ad Litem for children in fostercare.

So that’s her! Looking forward to her thoughts on life…check out her site at http://www.letsbsafe.com.