Categorized as: attack on child(ren)

Halloween Safety

Halloween is an exciting holiday for many families. Unfortunately, with all the fun comes the responsibility of making sure our children are safe. Here are a few safety tips to help make sure this Halloween season is a fun and safe one for your family.

1. Use glow sticks or flashlights to provide light for your children to while walking. This will also make them more visible to everyone else.

2. Adult supervision is important during Trick or Treat hours. Children under 12 should not trick or treat without an adult present.

3. Tell children not to enter a stranger’s house.

4. Make sure children wait to eat any candy collected until a parent or guardian is able to examine the candy collected.

5. The Halloween season provides families the opportunity to revisit the “stranger danger” talk.

6. Tell your children to avoid cutting through alleys and any unoccupied areas.

7. Stay on sidewalks or walk facing the traffic as far from the road as possible.

Have a safe and fun Halloween from the Divas in Defense Team!

4 Tips to Protect Your Children Online

Social media is a major concern for parents everywhere. After news of the students involved in the Steubenville rape last week, parents are outraged and looking for understanding of the incident turned social media event. The students were convicted based on explicit text messages, videos and Facebook posts that were made.

It is important that as a parent, you are taking a stand on control of social media within your households. Here a few quick tips to make sure your children are not engaging in inappropriate online communication:

1. What is Inappropriate?

Do not assume your child understands what is inappropriate social media communication. Take a minute to speak with your child about what they can and cannot engage in online. It is important that you have a discussion about the good, bad and ugly of social media.

2. Get Online.

Technology is changing each and everyday. It is important that you are familiar with the types of social media that your child is engaged in. Create a Facebook page and friend your daughter/son. Take an interest in what technology they are currently using so you are not in the dark.

3. Set Rules.

Set some ground rules for your child. Make sure they understand what your rules are for using social media on cell phones, social media websites and computers. Make sure you have passwords to access their accounts at anytime. (Remember the legal age to have a Facebook account is 13)

4. Educate Your Child.

Sexual assault and topics about sex will not go away if you ignore them. If your children are not learning about these topics from you, they are learning incorrect information from their friends. It is important to have these discussions with your children. Make your children feel comfortable coming to you with issues they have heard about or experienced. Need a little help starting the conversation? Click here to visit the Planned Parenthood website for resources to start the conversation.

Attempted child abduction in N.E. Atlanta

Police put out an alert Thursday for a man driving a black pickup truck who allegedly tried to kidnap a 7-year-old girl from a street corner in northeast Atlanta.

The incident happened about 7:45 p.m. Wednesday at Parkway Drive N.E. and Angier Avenue N.E., police said.

The girl was walking on Parkway with two friends, ages 9 and 12, when a man in a pickup slowed down and asked the girls where they were going, police said. They ignored him and continued walking.

“The man exited his truck, grabbed the 7-year-old girl, covered her mouth so that she couldn’t scream and began dragging her toward his truck,” Atlanta police Officer John Chafee said in a news release.

“The other two girls grabbed the victim and attempted to pull her away from the suspect, who then released the girl and fled the scene in his vehicle,” Chafee said.

The girls described the assailant as a black man, about 50 years old, bald, about 6 feet 1 inch tall and 200 pounds, police said. He was wearing a blue shirt, baggy shorts and red Converse All-Star shoes.

Police said the youngsters described the truck as a black full-sized pickup with silver rims, possibly spinners. The rear windows had decals of red and orange flames or lightning bolts.

Anyone with information should contact Atlanta Crime Stoppers at 404-577-8477. Tips can be made anonymously, and callers could be eligible for a reward of up to $2,000.

Story by David Ibata, Atlanta Journal Constitution

Read story here.

Florida Family Massacre: Tonya Thomas shot her kids 18 times before killing herself, reports say

 

New reports reveal that Tonya Thomas, a Florida mother, shot her four children 18 times before killing herself. She was also a victim of domestic abuse. Authorities said she fired the fatal rounds, smoked a cigarette and later killed herself. 

But hundreds of documents released by state officials Friday detailed the family’s history and revealed that Thomas was a woman trapped in a cycle of domestic violence and was also abused or neglected as a child.

In 2000, children watched as their father Joe Johnson yelled at Thomas for not making dinner, then punched and kicked her, knocking her into a wall. The children were removed from their parent’s home for a month but were returned despite DCF’s objections.

The documents also said Thomas was not verbally or mentally abusive to the children. Investigators spoke with neighbors and school officials and watched the children at home and said they “appear bonded to their parents.” A supervisor signed off on the case on May 13.

To read more on this article, please visit;

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57438291-504083/florida-family-massacre-tonya-thomas-shot-her-kids-18-times-before-killing-herself-reports-say/

 

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