Update and Some News Items

As you have probably noticed there have been a dearth of posts on the CNI blog of late.  I have a few projects which will be wrapped up mid-April so until then, sadly, there will be some filler her for lack of better topics and lack of time to write inspiring pieces.

The latest in the news (and lessons learned, of course):

• When rich, powerful people turn up unexpectedly dead, one hopes a thorough investigation is taking place.
• If you plan on faking your death, it doesn't take a die-hard survivalist to know that all contact must be cut off.  Duh.
• The most atrocious crime you can think of often results in a rush to judgement.  If the crime went down as reported the death penalty would be too good for the perpetrators, on the other hand, the Diane Downs case still rankles in the back of my mind.
• The nanny state is getting to be a bit much.
• ALL parents should teach their children how NOT to become a victim (and how not to become a perpetrator).

p.s. If you have left comments recently on the blog and don't see them posted, there was an issue with hundreds of comments being accidentally deleted.  Please re-post them!

Two Tragedies and the Teachable Moment

In the last week there have been two terrible tragedies which took the lives of 11 teenagers (details here and here).  In the injury prevention business, this is called the "teachable moment" when the details of the tragedy are horrible enough and immediate enough to grab the attention of the public.  My condolences go out to all of the families involved and while everyone has done stupid stuff in their lives ("there but for the grace of God go I" most of us can say), here are some safety reminders now that Spring Break, prom season, and summer are coming up (and yes, I know that you can tell your teenagers stuff until you are blue and they still may only follow what you say about 25% of the time):

• Get your kids into the habit of using a seat belt every time they get in the car so that it becomes a habit.
• Know where your kids are (verify, verify, verify...some of the kids who died in these wrecks told their parents they were staying with a friend while the friend told his parents they were doing the same thing which resulted in the kids being able to roam around all night unsupervised).
• Do not allow your kids to ride in a car with a teenage driver (driver error is way more common with young, inexperienced drivers).
• Teens under 18 years old, living under your roof and your rules have no business wandering around in the early hours of the morning.  Going out for a movie? Fine. Coming back at midnight from work? Fine. Going to an unspecified party until all hours of the night/morning? No way.
• Make sure your kids can call you at anytime for a ride home, no questions asked.
• Do not allow your licensed teenage driver to drive with more than one other person in the car (driver distraction is another common cause of wrecks and other kids are distracting).
• Any teenage driver who has had ANY drug or alcohol issues should not be given access to a car.
• Keep your kids so busy that they don't have time to get into trouble (if kids don't have anything to do they will roam around finding others who have nothing to do and eventually someone will have a bright idea to do something exceedingly stupid which all of the other kids will gladly follow along with, thus ensuring a bad outcome for all).
• Lecture/talk to your kids often about what they should and shouldn't do and why.  They will ignore/tune out most of it but eventually it will soak into their thick heads.
• Make your home the gathering place for kids (when our kids were young all of their friends hung out at our house which was just fine.  I was happy to feed and shelter and entertain--I think Nintendo was popular then--all of our kid's friends because while it was a hassle and expensive and marginally disruptive, it was better than the alternative which was not knowing what they are doing or with whom).
• Put the fear of God in your kids at a young age.  I don't mean beat or brutalize your kids but discipline is important and it should be appropriate, immediate, and consistent.  And it needs to start when they are a toddler, not when they are a teenager.
• While I am all for adults evading/avoiding surveillance in their everyday lives, this is not the case with kids.  They should have no expectation of privacy when it comes to their interactions with others.  Their diary should be private, their Facebook messages aren't.  Their room should be private (unless there is probable cause) but their cell phones (and GPS location) aren't.  Ditto for their computers (where they are interacting online with others) and the way they drive (when they are on the road with the public).

For the record, I am happy to say that our kids turned into responsible hard-working, home-owning, family-supporting citizens.  They didn't always follow the rules.  They did get into situations that could have easily ended in as deadly a fashion as the kids in the articles above.  There were times that they did things so wisely and responsibly that I was stunned (and there were times that they did things so stupid that I was equally stunned).  The bottom line is to do as much as you can to ensure your kids make it through their teenage years with as few scars as possible.  You aren't their friend, you aren't their buddy, you are the person guiding them into adulthood.  And one of these days you will be shocked to hear them talking to their kids exactly like you talked to them.  

5 Items to Have in Your Possession...That Aren't Associated With Your Name

It is ridiculously easy to track people these days.  Chances are at least of a few of your possessions unobtrusively track your every move without you even realizing it.  You may want to consider making it a bit more difficult to be tracked by your possessions.

1. Have an assortment of firearms that aren't purchased, registered, or otherwise connected to your name.
2. Have a "burner" phone (a prepaid cell phone purchased with cash) and pre-paid "minutes" for your cell phone also purchased with cash (likewise, you don't want to log into your email or Facebook or otherwise associate yourself with the cell phone if you want to keep it truly private).
3. Many new digital cameras will invisibly mark each photo with the GPS location of where the photo was taken.  You may want to disable this feature and of course, not include yourself in any photos taken.
4. Basically everything you do on the internet allows you to be tracked either overtly (your every post on Facebook, your every utterance on Twitter) or covertly (browsing history, cache, and cookies on your computer).  Be sure to keep your computer/tablet as "clean" as possible or use an anonymous computer if necessary to avoid being tracked this way.
5. Shield your everyday life.  Your address, where you work, the license plate on your car, the RFID chip in your passport, the tattoos on your arm...consider all of the ways that you can be tracked and identified then set to work to disconnect yourself from these entities (ie: have a ghost address, a car registered under a LLC, have location independent work, shield any item that contains a chip, remove--or better yet don't get--tattoos or permanent markings on your body).