Reviewed by Roxwood

Introduction:
Gavin de Becker is described as the nations (USA) leading expert on predicting violent behaviour. The book is a parents guide to keeping our children safe from violence and abuse. It covers topics from choosing childcare for babies and toddlers to keeping your teenagers safe

Good points about the book/parts you found helpful:
I found this a really reassuring book. Gavin de Becker is very realistic about the dangers our children are likely to meet and encourages us to trust our intuitions and our own ability to protect our child.

There is a chapter on what we should teach our children to give them the best chance of being able to seek help and protect themselves if they are seperated from us accidentally when young and inevitably as they get older. There are chapters on recognising the signs of sexual abuse and potential abusers and on choosing childcare and schools for our children as well as talking frankly about the relatively very small risks of our children being abducted or meeting with serious violence

Bad points, inaccuracies:
This book is written for the USA so the resources he suggests we turn to just aren’t here in our country. Sections on how to choose a pediatrician etc aren’t relevant to us and there is a big section on guns and how to protect your children from them.

Comments and other opinions:

There is a lot of useful information that everyone should read, particularly how to recognise when somebody may be preying or intending to prey on you or your child, and what we should be teaching our children in order to give them the skills they need to protect themselves. Some of it may be distressing to read, there are real life stories of people who have found themselves in some of the situations described, and they don’t all have happy endings.
I think it needs to be read, the scary parts are outweighed by the amount of information that I haven’t found elsewhere.