Have you discussed with your driving children the tricks that may or may not ever be used to trick him or her into helping a potential child molester or rapist? I am referring to the thousands of emails from friends that are forwarded relentlessly telling you that someone daughter or wife was lured by a man pleading for help and luckily escaped and to read the email carefully just in case it happens to you or your loved one.

Most of these emails are sent around the internet and designed to be forwarded on emotion, although most are likely hoaxes that have never happened, yet all seem plausible in the real world. One hoax but very plausible plea for help is when a well dressed man (after all who would suspect a child molester or rapist could clean up so nicely) comes into the mall entrance and tearfully pleas for help for his infant daughter who has stopped breathing.

Now I know in the past I would have responded as an RN and mother and immediately ran outside to help. Yet, In this day and age one can never be too careful when it comes to an unknown situation, regardless if you are living in the big city or small town suburbia. Now if I am confronted with a hysterical father I plan to first use my cell phone to call for an ambulance and the police before I leave the safety of the mall. After all if the situation is legitimate the person will wait for me to call 911 and if it is not true I am sure the perpetrator will leave the scene quickly.

Women especially need to learn to respond directly to a situation and to think the situation through before she reacts to the situation, which in the end may prove to be a hoax or setup to lure you into an unsafe situation. This same scenario is used in a parking garage where a man is leaning into a van as if there is a person inside in distress. He may plead for help for his baby, wife, child, or even mother. What you cannot see is that inside there is no one. It is an illusion designed to make you believe someone is actually inside.

Safety always comes first and calling 911 for professional help is a necessity when told a baby or child is ill, or someone needs help. Act instead of reacting and it may just save your live. Listen to those small internal alarm bells when they start ringing loudly and learn to respond or act instead of reacting emotionally. After all the live you save may be your own.