How your ‘gut’ instinct can protect your children

“There’s a strange man following us and I want to get to the car in a hurry, let’s run.” Holly said to her daughter Kate as they walked from the movie theatre. She asked her daughter to climb from the driver’s side of the car to the passenger seat. Holly had already created a survival plan in her mind and most of what ensued happened according to plan, except as she waited forKate to get on her side of the car from inside, the man was already there...”

Protecting the Gift is filled with more than 90 gripping true stories of survival like Holly’s. In Protecting the Gift, author Gavin de Becker shares with readers his insights into human behaviour, providing them with a look at how human predators work and how they select their targets and most important, how parents can protect their children. He offers the comforting knowledge that, like every creature on earth, human beings can predict violent behaviour. In fact, he says, parents are hardwired to do just that.

Protecting the Gift provides a direct look at the strategies of predators, a study of how children are victimized, and a look at why. Understanding human violence empowers parents to protect their children more effectively. De Becker asks readers at the outset: “Of all the strategies you might bring to protecting your children, could ignorance about violence possibly be an effective one?”

Exploring issues surrounding child abduction, family violence, childcare workers, school safety, teenage dating, driving, drinking, and the often-deadly relationship between boys and weapons, Protecting the Gift enables parents to confidently answer some of life’s highest stakes questions:
• How can I know a babysitter won't turn out to be someone who will harm my child?
• What's the best way to prepare my child to walk to school alone?
• What should I do if my child is lost in public?
• How can I spot sexual predators?
• How can I know if my child is being sexually abused?
• How can my kid's safety be improved?
• How can I know whether some friend of my child's might be dangerous?
• Is my own child displaying warning signs of future violence?
• What must my teenage son or daughter know in order to be safe?
• How can I teach my child about risk without causing too much fear?
• How can I reduce the worrying?

Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane) by Gavin de Becker is available at Chapters for $13.68