PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN provides guidance to teachers, child care and education administrators, health care providers, social service workers, and all who work with young children on how to recognize and understand child abuse and neglect. In addition to history and theory, Hirschy and Wilkinson offer a research-based, practical resource for the best practices in understanding and working with maltreated children. The text enables readers not only to identify abuse and neglect, but also to develop an understanding of the many facets of child maltreatment, find practical ideas to help children and their families, and ultimately reduce the incidence of child abuse and neglect. PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN features practical ideas on working with families and children; websites and resources to help those who work with and teach young children; information to better inform their practice; and useful tools such as checklist, and forms. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.

Nothing could be more important than the health of our children, and no one is better suited to examine the threats against it than Sandra Steingraber. Once called "a poet with a knife," she blends precise science with lyrical memoir. In Living Downstream she spoke as a biologist and cancer survivor; in Having Faith she spoke as an ecologist and expectant mother, viewing her own body as a habitat. Now she speaks as the scientist mother of two young children, enjoying and celebrating their lives while searching for ways to protect them -- and all children -- from the toxic, climate-threatened world they inhabit Each chapter of this engaging and unique book focuses on one inevitable ingredient of childhood -- everything from pizza to laundry to homework to the "Big Talk" -- and explores the underlying social, political, and ecological forces behind it. Through these everyday moments, Steingraber demonstrates how closely the private, intimate world of parenting connects to the public world of policy-making and how the ongoing environmental crisis is, fundamentally, a crisis of family life.

Shows how to identify sexual predators and protect children, discussing the most common characteristics of a sexual predator, different stages of abuse, and various types of predators.

This thought-provoking work raises important questions about sex offender laws, drawing from personal stories, research, and data to prove the policies promote fear, destroy lives, and fail to protect children. Do sex offender laws protect children, or are they inherently unfair practices that, at their worst, promote vigilante justice? The latter, this book argues. By analyzing the social, political, historical, and cultural context surrounding the emergence of current sex offender policies and laws, the work shows how sex offenders have come to loom as greater-than-life monsters when, in many cases, that is not true at all. Looking at its subject from a fresh viewpoint, the book shares research and new analyses of data and qualitative evidence to show how sex-offender laws are not only ineffective, but engender destructive fear and anxiety. To help readers understand the impact of these laws, the author presents interviews with sex offenders and their families as they describe the day-to-day reality of living on the sex offender registry. Citing research and statistics, the book challenges the idea that sex offenders must be continually monitored and publicly identified because they are incurably predatory. Most important, the study shows that undue sex offender panic is preventing policymakers from addressing the true threats to children—poverty and growing inequality.

A critical examination of efforts by social media companies—including Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram—to rein in cyberbullying by young users. High-profile cyberbullying cases often trigger exaggerated public concern about children's use of social media. Large companies like Facebook respond by pointing to their existing anti-bullying mechanisms or coordinate with nongovernmental organizations to organize anti-cyberbullying efforts. Do these attempts at self-regulation work? In this book, Tijana Milosevic examines the effectiveness of efforts by social media companies—including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram—to rein in cyberbullying by young users. Milosevic analyzes the anti-bullying policies of fourteen major social media companies, as recorded in companies' corporate documents, draws on interviews with company representatives and e-safety experts, and details the roles of nongovernmental organizations examining their ability to provide critical independent advice. She draws attention to lack of transparency in how companies handle bullying cases, emphasizing the need for a continuous independent evaluation of effectiveness of companies' mechanisms, especially from children's perspective. Milosevic argues that cyberbullying should be viewed in the context of children's rights and as part of the larger social problem of the culture of humiliation. Milosevic looks into five digital bullying cases related to suicides, examining the pressures on the social media companies involved, the nature of the public discussion, and subsequent government regulation that did not necessarily address the problem in a way that benefits children. She emphasizes the need not only for protection but also for participation and empowerment—for finding a way to protect the vulnerable while ensuring the child's right to participate in digital spaces.

The state is increasingly experienced as both intrusive and neglectful, particularly by those living in poverty, leading to loss of trust and widespread feelings of alienation and disconnection. Against this tense background, this innovative book argues that child protection policies and practices have become part of the problem, rather than ensuring children’s well-being and safety. Building on the ideas in the best-selling Re-imagining child protection and drawing together a wide range of social theorists and disciplines, the book: • Challenges existing notions of child protection, revealing their limits; • Ensures that the harms children and families experience are explored in a way that acknowledges the social and economic contexts in which they live; • Explains how the protective capacities within families and communities can be mobilised and practices of co-production adopted; • Places ethics and human rights at the centre of everyday conversations and practices.

As parents, our main job is to protect our children. These days, protection from includes not only the individuals we can see but, also, the individuals that we cannot see – yet who wish to harm our children. And with the growth of social networking and social media parents are often unaware of their child’s interactions on the internet. Protecting Your Children Online: What You Need to Know About Online Threats to Your Children introduces the crimes that can occur in cyberspace, as well as procedures for reporting and obtaining assistance in the event of victimization. Throughout Kimberly McCabe addresses several types of cyber crimes, ranging from child pornography and solicitation to cyberbullying, cyberstalking, and sexting, giving parents the necessary information they need to protect their children in cyberspace. This book builds on the historical efforts to reduce child abuse in the United States and looks at the limitations of these efforts when attempting to address child abuse in cyberspace. By identifying these different types of cybercrimes against children, and offering the definitions of terms and law enacted to prohibit these crimes, Kimberly McCabe gives possible responses for attempting to end internet crime on a national, international, and personal level. A definite must have for parents who want to be proactive in protecting their child in cyberspace, and those who wish to be better able to protect them from victimization.

Protecting Your Children from Internet Pornography exposes the many ways that pornography is menacing people, relationships, society, and—especially—our children. Dr. John Foubert’s ability to write about complex concepts in practical terms will help you understand issues like how pornography affects the brain, how pornography is a recipe for sexual violence, and why you should take measures to protect your children and those you love. This scholarly perspective is well balanced by practical suggestions at the end of each chapter that gives parents advice on how to apply the information in their own home. It is time for a national conversation about what pornography is really all about. Foubert’s book opens the door on that discussion and invites the reader to join the battle against porn with greater knowledge of its actual effects. You will be disturbed, shocked, motivated, and empowered to make a difference after reading this book.

"I commit that by the end of this book, you'll know more and be uncertain less; see more and deny less, accept more and hesitate less; act more and worry less. How can I be so sure? Because if nature selected you for the job of protecting a child, odds are you're up to it."--Gavin de Becker In his groundbreaking bestseller The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker showed millions of readers that like every creature on earth, human beings can predict violent behavior. Now, in Protecting the Gift, de Becker empowers parents to trust fully their own intuition when it comes to their children's safety. In this indispensable resource, de Becker provides keen insights into the behavior and strategies of predators. He offers practical new steps to enhance children's safety at every age level: specific questions parents can ask to screen effectively and evaluate baby-sitters, day-care services, schools, and doctors; a "Test of Twelve" safety skills children need before being alone in public; warning signs to help parents protect children from sexual abuse; and how to keep teenage girls and boys from unsafe situations with peers and adults. De Becker also shatters the myth that rules like Never Talk to Strangers will keep your children safe. By showing what danger really looks like--as opposed to what we might imagine it looks like--de Becker gives parents freedom from many common worries and unwarranted fears. All parents face the same challenges when it comes to their children's safety: whom to trust, whom to distrust, what to believe, what to doubt, what to fear, and what not to fear. De Becker helps parents find some certainty about life's highest-stakes questions: How can I know ababy-sitter won't turn out to be someone who harms my child? What should I ask child-care professionals when I interview them? What's the best way to prepare my child for walking to school alone? How can my child be safer at school? How can I spot sexual predators? What should I do if my child is lost in public? How can I teach my child about risk without causing too much fear? What must my teenage daughter know in order to be safe? What must my teenage son know in order to be safe? And finally, in the face of all these questions, how can I reduce the worrying? A generation ago, in Baby and Child Care, Dr. Benjamin Spock told parents that they already possessed most of the important knowledge about their children's health. Similarly, when it comes to predicting violence and protecting children, de Becker demonstrates that you already know most of what you need to know-- parents have, he says, "the wisdom of the species."