When the kids are young the parents have to watch at all times. There is no way they can be left out of sight. During that time they can be taught and later weaned at a pace that depends on their ability to demonstrate safe independent action to the hidden observer-the ever watchful perent.
What they are taught is very important if they are to really be able to defend themselves. Defense relies primarily on focus, attitude and skills. Both the CNN article and the Child Lures Prevention site fall far short of worthwhile material that would provide for an effective defense. Both for the parent as a teacher and the kid. Although they fall short, there is still some good stuff there. They also sell books w/o posting the content, or enough to know what you're buying.
Here's an example which indicates the mortal shortfall in their entire plan.
" Stress the importance of reporting rumors or threats of violence, including bomb threats and weapon possession by schoolmates. Reinforce that reporting can be done anonymously, but that school officials must be told for the safety of everyone."
They push nonviolence, ignorance, dependence and obfuscate the true nature of any confrontation the kid will experience. It's a clash of minds and will. They teach unabashedly that weapons possesion is a bad thing. The kid needs to know how to look around and improvise in a flash. For instance, some of the members of the flight that went down in PA on 9-11 attempted to boiled water to toss it on one, or more of the hijackers. Their reaction should have been for one guy to take the coffee maker and use it as a bludgeon, another to crack the pot and use it as a knife and another to take the cord and use it as a whip. There is also little use for a boxcutter against someone with a jacket, or shirt wrapped around their sleeve attacking with jabs, kicks and blocks, all at the same time.
That was just a mention of some of the skills. The others include being aware of your surroundings and the people in it, w/o making much of a conscious effort to do so. Being able to read the folks in those surroundings.
Like some others on the thread noted, martial arts schools are the best places to learn these things. Finding one that is worth it is work though. No aerobic type, community center dance and fun type, or simple method learning. You're after improving the mind primarily. The object is to gain the focus, attitude, self confidence, awareness and physical defensive skills to ward off an attack w/o even getting physical. The physical skills are usually never enough to overcome the attacker, it's the mental ones that will. That's what those other sites lack.
What a student is looking for first in one of those places is the what the school's owner and instructors offer the mind(as above). A good school will offer you that right away and let you know that the physical ain't coming soon and in many cases, not at all. That's, because it's a way of life. It's a way of life that differs from what the 2 above mentioned sites offer. Still, you'll learn that rotating your arms in a circle is one of the dumbest moves you can make. At least they will teach you an extremely effective attack, which in itself is the defense.
The best schools I have ever noted are the hard schools, Wing Chun, karate, ect. The only one I know offhand is the Degerburger(sp) academy in Chicago that teaches all arts and they tend to have pro instructors, that teach pros. Books are good too. For keeping other peoples hands off, wing chun has the best defensive stance and it's improved and illustrated by Bruce Lee( no it's not movie stuff) in The tao of wing chun, B. Lee. Other books are out there, but I don't remember the names.
With teaching from all sources, a kid will grow and never be a victim.