Grandchildren and Identity Theft

Mama needs a new car but she doesn't have enough money and her credit is bad. What does she do? She uses her child's social security number to establish herself a new line of credit. Sound far-fetched? Actually, it isn't.

Child identity theft is on the rise and it could affect your grandchild. According to Researcher Richard Power, children make perfect targets because they have no records and the crime usually isn't discovered until they become an adult.

Among the 4,311 children found to have distressed identity records, 300 were under five-years-old years old. Nearly 1,800 cases involved utility service records, such as bogus electricity service accounts. There were also 500 kids’ names attached to mortgages or foreclosures, and 415 of the kids had driver's licenses.

Among the more serious cases: a 16-year-old girl in Arizona with 33 credit accounts linked to her name, including three mortgages.

How does this happen? According to the report, the primary reasons for child identity theft are illegal immigration (e.g., to obtain false IDs for employment), organized crime (e.g., to engage in financial fraud) and friends and family (e.g., to circumvent bad credit ratings, etc.), the report says. And, more often than not, it is someone the child knows.

To learn more about how to protect your child or grandchild from identity theft, read this great article from CreditCards.com: Child ID Theft

Four Letter Words Aren't Always Bad

At some point every child hears and eventually says their first "four letter" word. That happened this evening at choir pratice.

My grandson and the other members of the Cherubs Choir were singing the song, "Hail Jesus You're My King" and when the music stopped, one little girl politely announced to the choir director that she wasn't allowed to sing the song because it had a bad word in it. To her, "hail" sounded like that other four-letter word we all know as h-e-l-l. At that point, the choir director proceeded to explain the difference and then thanked the parents for teaching children not to say those four-letter bad words.

No doubt, our children and grandchildren are going to be exposed to bad words at some point in their lives. We as parents and grandparents must explain to them that even though they may hear other people using profanity that we expect them to behave better than that and that it is not acceptable.

It is also important that your children never hear you use profanity. Our children learn most from the example we give them. If they hear you using "four letter" words it is only a matter of time until they start using them as well. After explaining that it is not acceptable for them to use profanity you need to go on to explain why. It will further reinforce that they should not be swearing once they understand that words can hurt people just like hitting or kicking.

This little girl did the right thing at choir rehearsal and we all are better for it.