Child Monitoring In the age of sex predators and other exploitation, parents would be wise to keep a keen eye on their children. Indeed, children are abducted every day. These abductions are often by people familiar to the parent or the child but strangers often do the deed. Parents can offset the risks and the chances of this happening by keeping close and keeping the child with certain safer environments but there has to be some amount of trust and community involvement at some point. While some parents are very involved and are part of the solution, others still are entirely too trusting and/or careless given what can happen to their child and those parents need to engage and become better custodians of their children.

Analysis

The author of this report went to a food court in a mall as it seemed to be a good "target-rich environment" in terms of the number of children and parents present. This was indeed the case as there were many caregivers and children present. Most of the caregivers were women of some sort (mothers, babysitters, etc.) with no male present at all, or at least not alone. When a male was present, there was also a woman present at the same time. Presumably, these were the parents, stepparents or married spouses that were taking care of the child and were presumably mostly the biological parents of the child. However, this was impossible to know based on sight alone.

The author of this report noted many children and their caretakers. However, there were several types that became clear as the observations went on. First, there was the dual-caretaker situation whereby more than one person was watching the child, or at least was in the presence of the child, at once. This was usually manifested by a man and a woman being present but this was not always the case as there were sometimes multiple women (usually no more than two or three). The multiple women were probably babysitters or day care personnel on an organized trip or it could have been a collective of mothers with their children. When there was clearly more than one caretaker and it was not a couple, it was always women only…no men. Anyway, to go back to the dual-caretaker/couple situation, the male in the relationship seemed to be dominant. However, it was not because the woman was unwilling or unable to take the lead. The men seemed obligated and self-inclined to take the lead role and thus just did so rather than waiting for the woman to responds. The men were usually sterner but were often more gentle and reserved, not unlike a lot of the women. The author of this report did not really see a situation where a man was present and was not the dominant force unless both parents were a little lackadaisical with their observations, which did happen. However, this will be covered more in-depth later on. One specific example was a manifestation of a man and woman with two children. The younger child was in a sling on the man and thus could not wander off while the other child, about two to three years old, was walking alongside the parents. There was a little bit of a pattern whereby the older child would hold the hand of one of the parents but would eventually test their limits. They would let go of their parent's hand, which drew little reaction from the parents, but then they would start to saunter off a bit. Every single time this occurred, the male caretaker would call her back and she would immediately comply the vast majority of the time. In the event that there was not full or any compliance, the male caretaker would make a steady but gentle bee-line for the child and corral her and the pattern above would then repeat itself.

The next group that will be covered is the woman with more than two kids on her arm that was clearly overwhelmed. This type of caretaker clearly cared about the safety of her kids (or the kids in her care, whatever the case may be) but she was clearly unprepared for one or more reason. In many cases, it was because she simply had too many kids to control all at once. The author of this report saw about two to three situations where a single caretaker (always a woman) had at least two children in tow and was clearly trying yet failing due to the kids...

A different condition, and sometimes a concurrent one to the multiple child situations above, was kids that were clearly not socialized properly and/or were not inclined to behave as they should in a public setting. Whether it is the child wanting to touch and fidget with everything or wander off, many kids simply were not paying any mind to their caretakers. Sometimes, this was due to an absence of direction but other times the children were simply ambivalent and uncaring about the requests and control that was exerted by the caretakers. After the official observation session, the author of this report was at a local retail store and saw multiple kids that would grab candy bars and other treats from the checkout lanes and beg their parent or caretaker to buy them. The children would tend to wander quite a bit and would often have to have the items ripped out of their hand and placed back on the shelf by the caretaker and the caretaker would generally ignore them up until that point. Sometimes the child wandering off would change that but sometimes it would not.
The opposite end of the spectrum are the so-called "helicopter parents" that are perhaps a little too over-reactive and controlling when a child steps the least bit out of line. While it is perhaps a good thing that the parent is so on-board with keeping the child safe, the child does need a little freedom to roam a bit and experience life and being too protective can be destructive to a child's self-control and self-experience as they age and grow. Children do need setbacks and challenges and helicopter parents undermine that by being too protective and too omnipresent in a child's life. While keeping the child safe in a social setting is perhaps not the best example of this, the child will need to be able to venture out on their own and/or with friends and the parents will not be able to be there at all times. One specific example was a child in a stroller that was flailing his arms about harmlessly. There were no items or other people in reach. Rather, the child was just gesticulating harmlessly. However, the caretaker of this child would grab the arm (or leg) of the child and put the child back in the normal sitting position every single time the child moved his arms or legs. While this may be a valid and correct action if the child was older (this child was less than a year old) or if the child was perhaps trying to strike or grab something improperly (not the case here), but it was clearly an overreaction in this instance.

A fourth type of situation observed are kids that are basically doing and interacting as they wish and it is the parents that are ambivalent or uncaring. Generally, unless said child is doing something extremely over the top or dangerous, the parent or caretaker does not even react. What is interesting is that the surrounding people are looking on with concern and they shift glances between the child and the caretaker as if to say "are you going to something, or what?." One such group came through where it was apparently a husband and wife (or at least a couple or co-parents) as they sauntered through the food court with three kids in tow. The kids mostly stayed with the parents but were wandering a bit and were being loud and rowdy. The male caretaker kept a basic eye on the kids and did pipe up when one or more child ventured too far away or was getting quite out of line. However, the children needed much more control than what was being exerted on them and they were clearly out of line for a public social setting. There was no consideration or tact being displayed by the caretakers or the children. The ambivalent child situation mentioned before fit this group perfectly.

In the end, it was clear that most of the caretakers had good intentions and were on top of things. However, there were some caretakers that were clearly overwhelmed while others seemed disinterested in doing their job. However, it would be fair to note that it is extremely likely that at least some of these people were caretakers only rather than parents and children that are not given structure and good behavior patterns to follow will tend to rebel and otherwise…