On Wednesday, November 7th a young girl avoided abduction through preparation from her parents. The family set up a code word system in case anyone out of the ordinary needed to pick the child up. If the person knew the code word, she could go with them, but if not she would know it was a trick. An unfamiliar man drove up to her friend and her and claimed that she needed to go with him because her brother had been in a terrible accident. She, of course, asked him for the code word just as her parents had taught her, and when the man couldn't figure it out, he drove away. Without her parents thinking ahead, we might not have ever seen her again.
I'm really happy that I found this article so that I can share it with all of you. It shows the importance of planning ahead and being honest. It probably took a lot for those parents to talk about kidnapping with their child, but they had the sense to realize that it was a conversation they needed to have and it paid off in the end. The purpose of this story is to get the word out so other families can take this as an example and to warn against this man. That being said, the audience is families with younger children and anyone in the area of the attempted abduction. This story can be linked to the much more unfortunate circumstances of Russel Mort, who has been missing since 1982. He was 2 1/2 years old at the time of his abduction which brings up the fact that her family is lucky that the girl was old enough to understand how to implement a code word at the time of the attempt because Russel and his family were not nearly as lucky.
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/News/girls-family-code-word-thwart-potential-kidnapping-draws/story?id=59135806
https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/russell-john-mort/@@download.pdf
This is a very interesting way to inform children of the dangers of kidnapping while veering the conversation in a positive direction, as the child will remember a secret code word rather than the kidnapper's secret.
ReplyDeleteI knew kids in elementary school who used code words when they were being picked up by someone other than their parent. I’m glad that this system has actually prevented someone from being kidnapped.
ReplyDeleteMaya Friedmann
I've heard of people using code words before, and it's really great to see that it works. I think it's great that you chose this article- the more people who see it, the better. It's especially important for students with younger siblings to see. This post contained advice and an event that had a positive outcome from the advice- I think that's pretty interesting.
ReplyDeleteMy mom also gave me a code word in case anything bad like this ever happened. I think it’s a very smart thing to do because just cause you think it will never happen, it just might.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting and can really save lots of lives. I hope more people start using this method to avoid being kidnapped.
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