What we (society/parents) have done in the past when it comes to child safety isn't ALL bad, however, it's TIME TO CHANGE the future of child safety!!!

IN 

1. Proactive and protective parenting - being present and engaged with your child without being a 'friend'. It's our job to shephard and guide our kids into adulthood with clear boundaries as to how adults behave. It starts with us! 

2. Talking about body safety and protective behaviours with our kids. These skills and tools CAN and WILL prevent and minimise abuse and harm. See my book, Operation KidSafe - a detective's guide for child abuse prevention for a comprehensive guide on how to have these conversations! 

3. Adequate supervision for children and young people. Older kids are not babysitters and leaving young children unsupervised together is a recipe for disaster. 

4. Device/app restrictions and time limit management - giving your kid a device with our restrictions is like throwing your child in a room with thousands of strangers. We are not doing that anymore.

5. Age appropriate Sextortion and online image abuse discussions with kids. These are REAL risks for our kids from as young as 7 years old. We need to be talking about these topics as well as online safety. 

6. Supervising and overseeing online usage (even our high schoolers) - see No. 4 & 5, we are not leaving our kids unsupervised, unguarded and unprotected this year. 

7. Calling out inappropriate behaviours of adults. 2024 is the year we hold adults accountable for their behaviours and the actions around our kids. Acting inappropriate or disrespectful is not tolerated. 

8. More time together without devices. We can all use more TIME out and without our devices. 2024 is the year to do it! 

OUT

1. Allowing unsupervised and restriction FREE access online. See above!

2. Posting photos of our children's faces on public and business social media accounts. Things have rapidly changed over the last few years and we can no longer trust that people will respect our children's images online.

I don't want to scare you all with how people misuse and abuse your children's images but for the sake of your children's safety and futures, please don't post their images publicly online. 

3. Over sharing our children' information and stories online. Again, everything online is NOT our property once posted.

We sign over the right to our information, the information we post and our images, videos and data once we sign up and post on the app. Therefore, everything you post about your child, your life, your stories is mined and farmed for the social media company. 

Also, in the wrong hands it can be used and abused.

But lastly, our children cannot consent to their information being shared online until they are older. If you are over sharing private information about your kids and it will be online forever, how do you think you'd feel if your parents did this to you?

4. Faithfully trusting people because they are 'FAMILY and FRIENDS' - 90% of all Child Sexual Abuse is by people known to the child with over 60% being someone related directly or indirectly to the child. We can't blindly trust people with our kids. 

5. Not listening to our early warning signs or 'intuition'. We need to start listening, start trusting our 'guts' and speaking up when stuff doesn't feel right. 

6. Not listening to our kids when they share their feelings. Our kids need us to be their greatest supporters, advocates and protectors. So listening to their feelings is a MUST do in order to create the type of relationships where they can do this. 

7. Sticking our heads in the sand about child sexual abuse and online safety.... IN 2024, WE ARE NO LONGER IGNORING, EXCUSING, JUSTIFYING, INVALIDATING OR TURNING OUR BACKS ON CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE! We can't stop it if we do. 

I had heaps more but that'll do for now. What would you add to the list for 2024?

Kristi x 

PS - want to learn more about this topic, check out my book, Operation KidSafe - a detective's guide to child abuse prevention on Amazon. You can also listen to the book via Audible. 

https://www.amazon.com.au/Operation-KidSafe-detectives-guide-prevention/dp/0645026859