SIX THINGS YOU CAN TEACH YOUR CHILDREN TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM PREDATORS! by JC Eberhart

[JCEberhart]

“An eleven year old girl. A predator. Life as she knew it . . . a life that ended. Her own. Life is supposed to end, eventually, in something like a peaceful death. Jaycee’s ended that day in hell. She encountered two predators, a male and a female. The gates of hell had opened wide, and she was swallowed up inside.”







Two years ago I composed an article about Serial Killer Hilton, “Don’t Become a Predator’s Prey.” In that article, I talked about warning our children that there are bad people out there. Bad people who look just like everyone else. They wear no sign that identifies them as bad. If only they did. This little girl, Jaycee, would have known to quickly run away. Perhaps before she could, she was swept up by a wave of evil. A wave of evil that no child on this earth could have ever imagined. Nor should any child ever have to imagine that which lay ahead for little, eleven year old, Jaycee.







Despite the futile, desperate attempts of her stepfather to save her, she was snatched away from him before his very eyes as he struggled to reach her in time. Dear God, should any parent ever have to suffer such agony?







When I think about the minutes, hours, days that unfolded into years of torturous questions and nightmares her family had to endure, I wonder how these special people made it through. When I think of the daily life of torture, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, rape, neglect, and imprisonment that Jaycee lived every day of the rest of her young life, I experience a shudder deep inside my soul.







This beautiful child who now, after being discovered eighteen years later, is raising two children conceived during two of her countless rapes. The two little girls who must now live with the knowledge that the monster who fathered them, from whom they descend, raped their mother. Two more innocent little angels victimized by evil.







The never ending, ongoing effects of acts too horrendous to imagine, committed against an innocent little girl, will live on for many generations to come. This precious family is left to gather the remnants of what once was their life, and mend it together again into some form of family unit that makes some kind of sense. A job not many would be up for.







Thankfully, this family will undergo years of professional help. Even so, will Jaycee be better off once she realizes how straight out of hell her everyday life really was? She is bound to compare that which she is now experiencing as a normal life, with that which she must have had to have convinced herself was normal in order to have managed to survive such horrors. Will she be able to come to terms with the brutality she experienced as her “normal life” during the last eighteen years? How will her psyche survive the blow of finally comparing the two ways of [her] life and realizing fully the depths of the horrors she endured?







I listened to the news on CNN as many of these details and questions were asked. As many people called-in and blamed the criminal justice system for not keeping this monster away from the innocent children we nurture and love. I wondered whether blaming will help anyone. It is what it is. I wish I could say that I believe it is likely to change anytime soon. But I don’t believe that.







What I do believe is that we who love and nurture our children, must also arm our babies with knowledge and awareness. Will this shatter their naivete’? Oh yes. Is that reality a heartbreaking one? Most definitely. If we were to ask Jaycee’s parents if that would have been better than to have lost their daughter for eighteen years, I do not wonder what their response would be. Nor should you.







Protect your children. Warn them, that they must:



- Never be alone with adults who are strangers,



- If they see a car slowing down and pulling-up to them, RUN AWAY AS FAST AS



THEIR LITTLE LEGS WILL CARRY THEM,



- If anyone approaches them on-foot who they do not know, RUN AWAY AS



FAST AS THEIR LITTLE LEGS WILL CARRY THEM,



- If anyone grabs them, SCREAM AS LOUDLY AS THEY CAN, OVER AND OVER,



THE WORDS, “YOU’RE NOT MY MOTHER!” OR, “YOU’RE NOT MY DAD!” Keep



screaming these words while kicking, biting and fighting WITH ALL THEIR



MIGHT!



- Never be alone with any adult their parents haven’t put them in the charge of,



- If they ever feel even slightly uncomfortable around any adult, GET AWAY



FROM THAT PERSON AS FAST AS THEY CAN GO!







Knowledge is power. We must empower our children with the knowledge that can save their lives so that in one foul swoop, life as they know it, cannot be ripped away from them by one of the many predators who live and who walk, among us.



(Copyright 2009 by JC Eberhart)