Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane) by Gavin de Becker

So I'm pretty sure that book bloggers are supposed to have nice concise little reviews -- not rambling streams of consciousness and/or bullet pointed excerpts from the book they are reviewing.  Luckily, I've never completely identified myself as a book blogger -- or at least not as solely a book blogger.

Whew, glad we cleared that up.

So this book.  It is truly not an alarmist book, though the title would give one that impression.  The author has an impressive resume -- the book flap bills him as "America's leading expert on predicting violent behavior" -- he has advised Supreme Court justices and the C.I.A. 

We live, in the U.S. and perhaps in the West as a whole, in a culture of fear.  De Becker's first book was The Gift of Fear.  I haven't read it but I have the impression that he feels that our intuition uses fear to warn us and that warning comes for a reason.  In this book, he encourages parents to trust their intuition.  He also educates the reader about what fears are unwarranted -- thus freeing up the emotional energy and time to focus on those dangers that are more likely to occur.  This book is filled with anecdotes (all taken from actual incidents) to illustrate his points.

The rest of this post will most likely be me blathering about specific parts of the book I especially liked.  Feel free to stop reading now, but do know that I recommend this book to all and sundry.

Chapter titles:
The Search for Certainty
Intuition - The Source of Safety
Worry
Survival Signals
Talk to Strangers
The Changing of the Guard
Baby-Sitters and Nannies
Children away from Home
Sexual Predators
Children at School
Protecting Ophelia
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and Smith & Wesson
Friends as Enemies
All in the Family
Protecting the Village
Protecting the Gift

Actually, I've decided that there's too much good stuff in here and it's too late at night.  I've put this on my re-read list and I'll leave it at that for now.

Goodnight and good luck.