Top 6 Skills from a Spy to Keep your Child Safe!

From child trafficking to children wandering off in the fairground, kidnappers to sleep overs, we live in a world where we can't help but worry about our children. We shouldn't live in a state of constant fear, we should however, be as prepared as we can and do whatever it takes, to minimize the risks to our loved ones. Prevention is better than cure so to speak. So I decided to write this article to give all parents everywhere, a better chance to keep their children safe.

Fact: Child trafficking is a multi-billion dollar industry. From slave labor to forced marriage, the demand is high to fill the gap in this growing market. With it, a need now more than ever, to do everything you can to keep you child safer than you've ever needed to before.

As a father, the skills I've learned while working for so many years in the Security & Intelligence industry, have been invaluable to me for keeping my family as safe as I possibly can. As an ex-spy, the knowledge I've gained is field tested, simple and effective. As a seasoned teacher and instructor in areas from body language to psychology, my experience is vast. And as a human, I feel it's my duty to share this information with you. Every child has the right to be protected, and kept as safe as we can possibly make them, and every parent, has a duty to provide that environment. So if you want the best for your child or children, read on to learn my top 6 tips for child safety.

Before we dive too deeply into this, I want to let you know that situational awareness plays a huge role, and teaching it to your child is exceptionally important. There are many ways to do this in the form of games etc, that can really help improve your child's situational awareness. For younger children you can start simple with things like playing eye spy. When my daughter was ready to move up from that, we used to play the 'Silly Plate' game. A game I made up as part of her home education. The silly plate game is where she'd have to call out a silly word, made up from the letters of the license plate off the car behind us, every time the car changed. In time I ramped it up, I'd previously played the 'logo' game, teaching her to identify cars by their badge. So eventually, we would play the silly plate game, and she would have to call out the color, make and model of the car every time it changed, before she could say the silly word made from the letters on the plate. In time, I made it more interesting by adding a points system. If she beat me spotting the car had changed, she would call out the details and gain a point, if I beat her, I'd get the point. If she spotted the same car twice in two different locations, she would win that round, and if she spotted the same car three times in three different locations, she would win the game outright.

The silly plate game is brilliant for teaching situational awareness in a fun way but also helps them to learn if they're being followed. It gets them into a good habit of keeping their eye on what's going on a round them. We have other games too, like color of the day. We pick a color at the start of the day and as we go out, we point out and mention things we haven't spotted before, in that day's color. It can be quite surprising what you spot that you've previously missed and has been there all the time. It really assists to improve the ability to observe more. So many people look but don't see. So for increasing observational skills, this game really helps.

As children get a little older, you can switch the games up a little and try guessing games. In a coffee shop for example, you can attempt to guess what people do for a living. It helps to get children to be a little more observant. My good friend James Pyle plays a game with his daughters (who are a bit older) where he asks them, "If you had to talk to this person, what do you see that you could use to help start a conversation?" It could be anything from logo's to team shirts or ball caps. college rings and so on. All these games are fun for the children to play, great for teaching them so many skills, and they enjoy it that much, they don't even know they're learning.

A huge issue I really need to address, is where I went so horribly wrong when I was trying to do so well as a Dad at protecting my daughter. From a young age, I drilled it in to her, not to talk to strangers. I was really proud of myself, and she knew as a small toddler to never talk to strangers. That all changed one day when she was playing at the park and a man walked up and started talking to her. As it happens there was nothing untoward going on but she happily moved with him around the other side of the playground, to an area that would have been out of my line of sight, had I not moved to approach her. There was no problem, it was simply a concerned parent who couldn't see his son (who she was playing with) and asked her to move around the other side of the playground. When I walked around to her and told her she shouldn't have wandered off, she apologized but what happened next changed my perception of everything I'd ever taught her. I told her it was a good job I came around to keep her in my line of sight and also asked her what I'd told her about talking to or going off with starngers. She looked up at me and I couldn't believe her reply.

She said: "He's not a stranger Daddy, he's a man."

It was at that moment I realized where I'd gone wrong. I asked her what she thought a stranger was and she told me like a monster type creature that takes children away. I felt so stupid, I'd spent so long teaching her not to talk to strangers and never took the time to make sure she knew exactly what a stranger was! I had to explain to her, that a stranger wasn't a weird creature, it was a person who we didn't know, a person who is strange to us because we haven't met them before. I wanted to make a point of putting this story in this article, because sometimes we can be so focused on giving our children the information and making sure they know it, we can easily forget to check if they understand it.

Now we've covered some valuable areas, I'll give you my list of top tips. I'm going to assume at this point you've previously read all the usual (standard) advice, not to go off alone, not to talk to strangers, always tell your parents where you're going and who with etc. So here we go with the top 6 tips to keep your child safe:

1) I've seen lots of CCTV footage and witness statements of small children being grabbed from shopping carts. A simple carabiner clip through the rear belt loop of your child's outfit and the bars in the trolley, will slow any attempted snatch and run of your child. Of course it's not going to stop anyone permanently but it will buy you valuable reaction time. When the adrenalin fueled attempt to kidnap your child is foiled on the first shot, panic will set in. The assailant will be in a sort of 'fight or flight' mode. They wont have the use of their fine motor skills and their main logical thinking part of the brain won't be engaged. After a few tugs they will either give up and run or hopefully you will have jumped in and done what any parent would naturally do. Stopped the attempted crime. This little trick is quick, cheap and an easy way, to gain valuable seconds for you to react in an emergency situation and it could mean the difference between your child being saved or not.

2) Gaining access to restricted areas is something I've done many times in my career, for several different reasons. One, is my work perimeter testing or penetration testing. This is where I'm hired to gain access to a place, such as an army camp, business, a compound or office somewhere or even somebody's house. Despite my training in CMOE (Covert Method Of Entry) and my abilities to do everything from pick locks to disable alarms, the majority of the time, that's not how I usually gain access. Believe it or not, I usually have the door held wide open for me, by a member of staff coming back from a cigarette break, or get issued a new code to the door over the phone, by someone in a department I call up and blag. The point is, it's social engineering that gets my assignment completed. Used in the right way, it's an extremely powerful tool. For this reason alone, I highly recommend never dressing your child in a personalized item. As cute as they are, they can make you extremely vulnerable. The reason for this, is because of how easy it is for a potential kidnapper, to spot your child's name on a personalized item (Jacket, shirt, headband, backpack etc) and simply call the child by their name, telling them your Mommy and Daddy asked me to take you to them or something similar. For the same reason, be very aware of the information you display on your car. Decals and stickers can give away masses of information. Family size, schools and colleges, military parents (Daddy's away for a long time) and that kind of thing. People leak information constantly, the more you give away, the more you increase your vulnerability.

3) When going away for the day, the whole family obviously wants to enjoy themselves. Relax and have a good time, so a couple of simple steps can stop an inconvenience, becoming a nightmare. When I take my family to the fairground, I will pick a central ERV Point (Emergency Rendezvous). This will usually be the biggest ride in the fairground, like the big wheel. It can be seen from any position, no matter where you are in the fairground, and will always be easy to find and get to. With the allocated ERV in place, if any of us get lost, we know to head to the big wheel and wait there until the rest of the family arrive. Wherever you are, the same kind of theory can be applied, if you're in Paris, it's the Eiffel tower, New York - the Empire State Building, always something easy to see or find, even if you have to ask for directions, it should be something that everyone will know and how to get to it.

4) My wife recently took my daughter to a large indoor trampoline center. She dressed here in comfortable clothes, a white T-shirt and leggings, tied her hair up and away they went. She looked lovely, unfortunately, so did every other kid in the entire place. Pretty much every child had a white T-shirt on, with dark leggings or jeans. My daughter didn't stand out in the crowd, and it took so much longer to find her than what would be favorable. With this in mind, if you're off out for the day, dress your child in a bright (preferably uniquely colored) T-shirt. Even better if it has an uncommon logo or picture that's easy to describe. That way, if they do go missing, it's easy to give a description and they're easier to spot. A bright high-vis yellow T-shirt with a picture of the Eiffel tower on the front for example, means they will stand out, and of course there's no confusion, everyone knows what the Eiffel tower looks like, so there's no fear of making any mistakes, unlike trying to describe a complicated pattern or logo. Lastly on this point, a hugely valuable investment in security, is to take a picture on your phone of your child, in that days outfit, before you leave your home. That way, if police ask what they were wearing, you have both a recent photo, and the exact outfit they were wearing before they went missing.

5) Having a central ERV is all well and good but what about when your child is walking home on their own? Well, here's a couple of little tips that will help. First of all, if they're walking home and a car or van slows behind them, there's two options. If they're in an area that's built up with plenty of houses, look for one with the lights on or obvious signs people are at home. Tell your child to walk up to it like they've reached their destination. There's a saying in the spy world,

"If someone's not your enemy, then potentially, they're your friend."

Have your child knock on the door of the house and simply say,

"Hi, I was walking home alone and a car started following me, I'm scared and don't feel safe. Can I please come in and call my parents or wait here until they've gone?"

Experience has taught me that there are very few people that will refuse. If they're in a n area where the houses are spread out a little further, then there is another option they can use. Firstly, don't run in the direction the car is facing, they will only tire themselves out, and the car will catch them up with ease. Instead, if they really have to run, turn around and run in the opposite direction. The vehicle will have to turn around which might buy your child the valuable few seconds it take s to get away. Tell them to head for an area that's not accessible to vehicles. Preferably somewhere with plenty of people or at least CCTV and plenty of different options to run to, like a shopping mall or a place with multiple exits etc. If they know they're in danger, tell them to dial 911 immediately and follow the instructions of the operator.

6) Drills. In the event that someone does try to abduct your child, tell them all rules are out the window. We all want to be proud of our polite and well mannered offspring, however, if someone try to take them, they must know all of the things you've taught them about good behavior are to be scrapped. They MUST grab attention. They must do everything they can to be a HARD TARGET. Scream, bite, punch, kick, throw glasses, smash plates, shout and get the attention, help or assistance of anyone around. Tell them to yell out to people for help or to call the police. Tell them to shout that they don't know who this person is and they're being kidnapped. There's a time to be nice, and this isn't it, so it must be clear that they won't get into any trouble for anything they do in this scenario. Tell them they don't have worry about anything they break or do, their safety is more important than any material object. I'm sure you'd rather pay for damages than the alternative.

An extra bonus. Downloading tracking software to your child's phone obviously has its advantages, however, experienced kidnappers will know the phone is the first thing to go. So look into alternatives. The market has plenty to offer in the way of GPS tracking systems, covertly hidden in all sorts of things from jewelry to keyrings. Plus phones get lost all the time. As an extra layer of security, consider this as an option.

I hope you have found this article useful, I hope you share this article as far and wide as you can, in order to spread the information and do what we can to keep our children safe. I hope you've enjoyed it and it's opened your mind to some of the simple and effective steps you can take, to keep your family prepared and safe. Most importantly, if it saves just one life, it was worth me writing and you sharing. I'd love to hear your thoughts and if you have any methods or tactics you use yourself, that you would like to share to keep children safe, then please add them in the comments. The more we can do the better.

I know these six tips don't cover all the aspects, of all children, of all ages. It's a brief outline of some of the basic measures that can be taken, if I listed all of the tactics that can be used, it would be a book and not an article. Of course there are plenty of other ways to help with safety and so much more we can do. If you want more information or a bespoke package, then I suggest hiring a consultant like myself or someone within the industry, to give you further advice and guidance for family security. I've worked in the industry for a number of years, as a Close Protection Operative, as a trainer and as a consultant. If I'm not available myself, I know plenty of people within the industry who I can refer you to or recommend. The kind of guidance available will span from personal security, to home invasion plans and so on. We can't stop the world from being a dangerous place but we can be better prepared.

Thank you fo reading and please remember to share!

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