A Parent''s Worst Nightmare

Anyone who owns a credit card will confess that their worst nightmare is credit card theft and subsequent fraud. The popular TV series ‘Friends’ has an episode where Monica’s card gets stolen and the lady who steals it has a ball, doing all that she wanted to but couldn’t because of lack of money. Ultimately, though she does get caught and sent to jail, but the message is loud and clear – credit card fraud is a reality today and is the worst nightmare that can hit you.
Credit card fraud affects two people – the one who steals and the one whose card gets stolen from. While the former has a ball, the latter is the one who suffers. Imagine huge, unexplained expenses showing up on your card, with you having to foot the bill. There is no limit to the amount of damage that someone can inflict once they have your credit card details, some people can just go on and on.
With the advent of the internet, the limits of the fraud seem to have reached a new crescendo altogether. Newspapers are filled with stories day after day of people being tricked and taken for a ride in the name of buying stuff through the Internet and then using their card to pay for the same.
What, then, is the solution? There are some simple steps, which if taken, can minimize fraud and subsequent heart-burn.

STEPS TO PREVENT CREDIT CARD FRAUD

 Be careful while using your credit card. Never leave it lying around and make sure you retrieve it after every transaction
 Do not divulge your credit card information easily, especially over the telephone. Beware of people who call you, asking for your card information. Legitimate and reputed companies would never do that
 Use your credit card responsibly over the internet. Do not splash your card information over every available site. Do not respond to emails asking for your credit card information or visit a website that seeks the same. These are popular scams called phishing scams
 Be sure to sign the back of your credit card as soon as your receive it
 Shred all your credit card information after you are done with it
 Be careful with your PIN number. Do not write it anywhere and everywhere, where it can be picked up easily
 Do not borrow or lend your card to others, even if they maybe known to you
 While traveling, keep your credit cards in a separate pouch than your cash, so that the risk of loss is less. If you shift your address, make sure to notify the credit card company of your new address promptly
If, after taking care of the above, you have reason to believe a fraud has been committed using your card, notify the credit card immediately. If notified on time, you may even help in apprehending the person committing the fraud. Credit card fraud can be prevented, if you are extra careful.

Every parent has an anxiety attack whenever they hear a report of a missing or abducted child in the news. They pray it never happens to them and rightly so because it is a parent's worst nightmare.

Unfortunately, teenagers do not always get that same attention or elicit the same feelings as the missing or abducted child. Teens are almost automatically considered runaways rather than missing children.

And teens that are reported as runaways do not grab people's attention. The police do not actively search for runaways. It is not a crime to run away from home.

However, in many cases when a teen is missing a crime has been committed. By the police not actively pursuing the conditions surrounding the teen’s disappearance, the crime goes undetected and unpunished.

If some adult lures your teenager and they run away from home and you did not know they were talked into leaving, then the police will not know it either. The police will assume your teen is a runaway and will add it to all the other runaways to be on the lookout for, but will not actively pursue the case because they do not know a crime has been committed.

We all have seen Dateline NBC where they entrap guys who want to have sex with teenagers, then arrest them once they get to the rendezvous point. That’s all well and good that they are out there hunting the hunters and preying on the predators. I applaud their effort.

However, that does nothing for the teen that is considered a runaway because no one knows she or he met someone on the Internet who talked them into running away from home.

The time has come for every parent who has a teenager who uses a computer to start monitoring his or her activities. Teens will scream about their privacy, but you need to know that if they do run away from home that they were lured away.

You need to know and the police need to know because if they were talked into leaving by an adult, then a crime has been committed and the police can put more resources into finding them.

There is software that will allow you to not only block your children and teenagers from accessing inappropriate content on the web, it will also log everything your child or teen does on the computer so you have a record. That record includes online chatroom conversations, email, instant messaging, and websites visited.

The software will even send you a message on your cell phone or to your email whenever your child or teen accesses inappropriate content.

You cannot afford to let your child or teenager decide for themselves what is or is not ok to do on the web. The predators are smarter than they are no matter what they tell you. Your teenager may be smarter than you may when it comes to the computer, but you know what is or is not good for them when it comes to their safety.

Do not be intimidated if you do not know a lot about computers. Do not let that be your excuse for not monitoring your children and teenagers. In the footer of this article you will find resources that can help you monitor everyone who uses your computer. I recommend you start doing it today before IU have to go out and search for your runaway or lured-away teen.

In an instant, it could all be over. A parent's worst nightmare. A situation that could ruin our lives forever. Everything we'd ever worked for, everything we’d ever dreamed of, everything we'd spent a lifetime building for ourselves and our families would be gone just like that. And what could be so horrible? All it takes is one regrettable moment for a child to commit an act so horrendous that it leads him to prison, the morgue, or death row.

Imagine what that would be like. One minute we're dropping our child off at school, hugging him and telling him we love him, and then we're off to work. A few hours later we get the phone call, the one we've always dreaded. "Someone’s been hurt," a voice tells us. Or worse. Maybe it's our child. Or maybe it's someone else's child, and our kid was responsible. But now our child is beyond our help, no longer within an arm's reach. He's been locked away behind bars, and there's nothing we can do about it. No hugs. No tearful pleas. No emotional arguments. Nothing can be done other than to sit down and try to figure out what we could have done to avoid this moment of no return.

Does this scenario sound a little unreal? Not for the thousands of parents whose lives have been thrown upside down by their child’s misbehavior. The child we thought we knew. The child we believed we could trust. Our kids are maturing faster than ever, and sometimes, when given too much leeway, they get into trouble, and a zero-tolerant society awaits them like a steel-jawed trap bearing its fangs.

Many of us believe we don’t have the time or the energy to keep up with what our kids are up to. As parents, we feel overburdened with work and overwhelmed with the traumas that affect our daily lives. We find that we've lost touch with not only ourselves but with the reality of who our kids have become and what they're thinking. As a society, it's costing us dearly. Prisons are filling with our offspring. Youthful offenders under the age of 18 account for over 20 percent of all violent crimes committed in this country. In the last 10 years juvenile arrests for violence have increased by 75 percent.

Juvenile arrests for weapons violations increased by 103 percent. Illegal drug use by teens has increased by 150 percent and the number of juveniles admitting to having used drugs in the past month has more than doubled. These statistics affect everyone. Children fear in school violence. Parents fear their kids won't return home at night. And the statistics are only getting worse. So what can we do about it? There's plenty, and it starts with a little compassion, and a lot of time devoted to the most important investment of our lives: our children. Five things that we can do to help keep our kids off of death row include:

Being proactive as a parent

We can't be absentee parents. We need to get off the snide and strive to know who our kids are. We need to communicate with them. Keep a finger on the pulse of what they're up to in life. Anticipate what they're doing and what they might be getting themselves into. We need to know what our children are thinking. And the best way to do this is to ask them: What are you thinking?

Find out what our kids' likes and dislikes are. Set them up to succeed. Our kids want to do what's right. They just have a tough time figuring out what that is sometimes. That's why it's up to us to teach them right from wrong, and to be patient with our lessons. They will continue to dictate our joys and frustrations. And if our kids are living happy, healthy lives, we can rest assured that we will too. That's why we've got to take the time to deal with them. Play into their likes in a positive and constructive way. Work with them in planning their daily schedules.

One great way to do this is to get a week at a glance planner and help them set up what they're going to do. Kids love this. It gives them a chance to participate in setting up their schedules, and it teaches them how to manage their time in a positive and constructive manner. Everyone likes to be able to plan his or her life, and it helps to avoid unpleasant surprises. It also gives both parent and child a point of reference to communicate from.

Sit down and go over their week's schedule with them on Sunday nights. And then each night thereafter make sure both parent and child knows what's in store for the next day. This allows both parties to prepare for and to put positive energies into accomplishing important goals for each day of their lives. When the child is old enough, and he’s proven himself responsible and worthy, allow him to have a bigger role in creating his schedule. But the bottom line is we're the bosses, because we know what's right. And we have to make sure they understand this in a loving and constructive way.

Communication is key with kids

How many of us grew up with communication problems of our own? Where at home, our conversations were not easy to come by with parents or siblings? Either mom and dad were too tired or too tied up in their problems to communicate with us about our own strange moods and teenage issues. It's important to break that pattern with our kids. Communication is the lifeblood to a happy understanding between parent and child. It's the opportunity to get to know who they are, and with their feedback, to teach them a little bit about us. Kids appreciate this. They want their parents to care about them in an honest and compassionate way. Even if communication has been poor in the past, there's no better time to straighten this out than right now.

Make time for our children. Take time out of each night to ask them what their day was like. Find out their moods, because these are good indicators of their happiness level. And with a strong level of positive contentment comes excelled performance. If communication goes bad one day, don't fret just start again the next. And always communicate from a positive place.

We don't like it when someone criticizes us, or gets on our cases constantly, and neither do kids. Once we've opened that line of dialogue, and trust has been established between us, then we have the basis set up to begin discussing deeper issues, and problems that need to be dealt with. Our kids learn their communication from those around them, and it's better that they learn it from us, parents who are emotionally healthy and verbally communicative.

Don't trust the mass media with our children

As parents, we tend to get lazy sometimes and use the TV as a baby sitter for our kids. Plop little Willy in front of the television set and watch him become a zombie while we tend to our chores and pretend for a while that he doesn't exist. Or maybe we feed him hours of banal video games as entertainment or we let him listen to the constant barrage from a radio while doing his homework. It we really thought about it, this would probably not be the kind of programming we want for our kids.

One thing we know we can count on is that the mass media is not out to educate our kids. Their job is to generate programming that will bring in advertising revenue. Period. That's why sex, violence, and manipulative advertising fill the airwaves. Our children learn improper lessons and misguided values through TV that generally have little bearing on real life. Their life's lessons need to come from us. We need to guide our kids by keeping them away from television and video games and getting them involved in wholesome, consciousness expanding endeavors. And if we want to help them in school we could start by helping them with their reading.

Find out what kinds of books they like and read to them. Or have them read to us. Books are available everywhere. Take them to the library, go to a used bookstore, check grandma's attic. Anywhere it takes to find educational books that are filled with positive social messages. The more time our children spend reading, the better they get at it, and the more confidence they have in their studies. Good study habits lead to good grades.

And good grades lead to a better education, and the potential for financial freedom at the end of the road. And if little Willy needs a break from studies and begs for a videogame fix, every now and then it's okay to give it to him. Just make sure it's educational. Make it fun but leave the sexual and violent content for the adults. Teaching our kids the value of learning is the most important thing we can do. We should be spending quality time with our kids rather than wasting it on the bad habits we developed when we were young. Our kids deserve so much more than the mindless gratification delivered by MTV.

Don't create a victim by playing the victim

We've all played the victim at one time or another in our lives, and if done too much it can become habit forming. When growing up, we experienced victimhood with our parents, our teachers, and our government. Then as adults, we had kids, and we become victims to their ill emotions and verbal abuse. We tell them how much they hurt us. We cry in front of them. And we create the child victim. Our children then become the victims to their parents. They become the victim at school and on the streets. It's a vicious cycle that needs to be broken.

Sometimes it takes our stepping back and looking deeply into ourselves to see if we're still playing the victim in our household. If we're always acting like we're hurt, we need to change it. If our parents played the roles with us, we need to recognize this, and reverse the pattern. We don't want to turn our children into society's victims. Victims end up in prison, the morgue, and worse.

Don't turn our heads to other people’s problems

We look through the newspapers or watch the sickening stories on the six o'clock news about the horrible grief that has struck someone else’s family. How someone else's child got sick or was badly injured or murdered. We say, "Thank god it wasn't our child or our family," and then we change the channel. Eventually, we become immune to other people's pain. We find ourselves desensitized to the grave issues that seemingly affect everyone else. We act like this could never happen to us.

But the truth is that it could. It only takes a second for tragedy to strike the hearts of those we love. We need to reverse this by becoming sensitive to other people's plights. This sensitivity and compassion that we share with our brotherhood will ultimately come back to pave the way for success in our own lives. It could also be used to teach compassionate lessons to our children. By teaching them that these kinds of problems are real, that they affect average people just like us, we set the groundwork for teaching them more valuable lessons. We can teach them the proper kinds of behavior necessary to avoid such calamities. By recognizing problems and their solutions in others, our kids will learn what it takes to shield similar problems from their own lives and how to protect their family from it ever happening to them.

When you have children, you realize that the most important thing to you at that point is making sure that they stay healthy and that if there is anything that you can do to improve the quality of their health, you make sure that you do that. No matter what happens, your foremost concern is their health and welfare.

Having mold growing in your home is a pretty heavy inconvenience for any homeowner, but for parents of small children, it can be a nightmare. The health of small children is very fragile at that point of their lives and most parents understand this, but do not tend to realize just how serious of a threat to their health can exist inside their own homes. We tend to be the most concerned with the threats that come from outside our homes, but one of the most serious threats can be growing almost anywhere.

The areas of our homes that are the most moist also tend to be the ones that we frequent the most, such as the bathroom and the kitchen, and unfortunately, these are the two areas of the home that are the most at risk for mold growth. The food that your children eat is not the only thing in your home that can become moldy. The ceilings, floors, and walls can become just as moldy as a stale loaf of bread, but you may not notice it until it is too late. Symptoms of mold exposure often show themselves in those members of our households that are the most sensitive to environmental changes, such as children, pets, and elderly people.

Symptoms of mold exposure are very similar to the symptoms of most allergies that involve pollen, grass, or pet dander and can include sneezing, runny noses, blocked noses, eye irritation, itchy skin, and etcetera. Infants are in the most danger and if you discover mold growing anywhere in the house, your baby needs to be taken to a clean environment quickly and needs to stay there until the contamination is removed. Infants are susceptible to developing hemorrhagic pneumonia from mold exposure among other conditions, so it should be taken very seriously. Even if the mold growth is old and dead, it can still cause allergy symptoms, reactions, and can aggravate any pre-existing respiratory conditions that may exist in your home.

To keep your children healthy, do not allow them to stay in a home that is contaminated with mold and any items in your home that are found to be molded, especially toys, should be thrown away. Porous items like stuffed animals and bedding need to be thrown away, since it is difficult to completely disinfect these items and small children often put these things in their mouths.

Worst nightmare for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., employees, suppliers and stockholders reared menacingly. The old “yellow menace” of once-thought bygone days is alive and well and starting to manufacture automobiles in China. The Chrysler Motor Automobile Co. succumbed in 1998. China already manufactures many automobile parts for vehicles in other countries, including parking brakes and seat covers to the U.S. More complex parts like gears are being manufactured for other companies abroad.

Chinese authorities are working hard to improve quality. Fully assembled automobiles by Chinese-owned automobile makers have already begun to developing nations in South America, Africa and the Middle East. Industry analysts say “significant numbers” of automobiles will be shipped from Chinese plants to the U.S. and Europe within three years. Robert A. Lutz, vice chairman of General Motors, says “at least one” Chinese firm will be exporting in five years.

Whatever, General Motors and Ford have their backs to the wall. Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United automobile Workers, last week denounced Daimler’s plans:“The $1.50-to-$1.95-per-hour labor cost in the Chinese automobile industry is not arrived at by any ‘natural’ operations of a free market. It comes by through artificial repression of wages by a brutal regime which outlaws independent trade unions, and jails more labor activists than any country in the world!” China has the largest population in the world that is ambitious, hard working and prone to revolution. Who is to bell the dragon? Americans can fight only one war at a time.

An improving economy in China eventually will bring competition for labor and market. One may not like the level, or time requirement, but the alternatives are more unpalatable. Automobile stocks declined sharply, but recovered when famed investor Kirk Kerkorian bought 22 million shares of GM shares on the open market and offered to buy 28 million more. It cited their financial commitments to retirees for exceptional pension and health care costs. GM is said to be the nation’s largest private health-care provider with l.1 million workers, retirees and their families. Industry analysts blame sluggish GM and Ford sales on high gasoline prices and emphasis on oversize automobiles with poor mileage. G.M, Ford, and the UAW will huff and puff, but they will build more efficient automobiles at lower labor costs. They have no other choice. Charles E. Wilson, chief executive officer of G.M. in 1953, had it right when he famously declared – to great criticism: “What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice versa.”

Worst nightmare for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., employees, suppliers and stockholders reared menacingly. The old “yellow menace” of once-thought bygone days is alive and well and starting to manufacture automobiles in China. The Chrysler Motor Automobile Co. succumbed in 1998. China already manufactures many automobile parts for vehicles in other countries, including parking brakes and seat covers to the U.S. More complex parts like gears are being manufactured for other companies abroad.

Chinese authorities are working hard to improve quality. Fully assembled automobiles by Chinese-owned automobile makers have already begun to developing nations in South America, Africa and the Middle East. Industry analysts say “significant numbers” of automobiles will be shipped from Chinese plants to the U.S. and Europe within three years. Robert A. Lutz, vice chairman of General Motors, says “at least one” Chinese firm will be exporting in five years.

Whatever, General Motors and Ford have their backs to the wall. Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United automobile Workers, last week denounced Daimler’s plans:“The $1.50-to-$1.95-per-hour labor cost in the Chinese automobile industry is not arrived at by any ‘natural’ operations of a free market. It comes by through artificial repression of wages by a brutal regime which outlaws independent trade unions, and jails more labor activists than any country in the world!” China has the largest population in the world that is ambitious, hard working and prone to revolution. Who is to bell the dragon? Americans can fight only one war at a time.

An improving economy in China eventually will bring competition for labor and market. One may not like the level, or time requirement, but the alternatives are more unpalatable. Automobile stocks declined sharply, but recovered when famed investor Kirk Kerkorian bought 22 million shares of GM shares on the open market and offered to buy 28 million more. It cited their financial commitments to retirees for exceptional pension and health care costs. GM is said to be the nation’s largest private health-care provider with l.1 million workers, retirees and their families. Industry analysts blame sluggish GM and Ford sales on high gasoline prices and emphasis on oversize automobiles with poor mileage. G.M, Ford, and the UAW will huff and puff, but they will build more efficient automobiles at lower labor costs. They have no other choice. Charles E. Wilson, chief executive officer of G.M. in 1953, had it right when he famously declared – to great criticism: “What is good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice versa.”