The 16-year-old child of a tech millionaire/billionaire couple has gone missing in San Francisco. According to the latest report, Mint Butterfield, the teen child of the tech founders of Slack and Flickr, went missing over the weekend. Authorities are saying that the teenager is considered a "voluntary missing person" as there is no evidence to suggest the teen "was taken against their will’’.      When we talk about high-net worth families or as in this case, the child of billionaires, the public believes that since they have the money, they must have security teams with them. Now, we have to clarify that many families of enormous wealth do not always have security teams. They may have an army of cooks, nannies, drivers, and other household personnel but they do not have security. Why? They think they do not need it, no one knows what  they (the children) look like, or they haven’t had an actual threat. And usually those who do get security for their children, they only do so AFTER something terrible has occurred. Over the 22 years of my career in the executive protection industry, I have spent most of it protecting children and teenagers, rather than adults. These children present the same issues any other child of their age will, compounded by the  issues that are associated with their environment, the people they deal with, publicity etc. And no one seems to comprehend... Just because you have kids, or read a book or two about childcare,  doesn’t mean you are automatically ‘’qualified” to work with high-net worth or high publicity kids. Quite often, they have a unique psychological profile and they require a very specific approach. And many times, you may be requested to seek additional training, and I don’t mean EP training. Children and especially teenagers do not want you around them for the most part. They've seen many an agent like you before, you're nothing new. You're just another face who is going to attempt to keep everything calm and collected.       You must be able to assure they get the space and privacy they want, but at the same time, it is imperative that they are protected. Covert protective details work best for teenagers, especially those who are resisting any kind of supervision. The less they can see of you, the more "free" they feel. We hope this incident has a good ending for all involved, and if you would like to learn more about the topic of protecting the kids of the rich and famous, below are some of our previous articles covering similar circumstances that you might find of interest. https://sfstandard.com/2024/04/23/slack-ceos-teen-child-reported-missing-san-francisco/ -https://www.lemareschal.com/post/the-necessity-of-protecting-the-children-of-the-hnw-and-uhnw-families -https://www.lemareschal.com/post/offering-security-details-for-minors-the-issues-you-will-be-dealing-with -https://www.lemareschal.com/post/covert-protective-details-the-invisible-shield #childsafety #childprotection

Posted by LeMareschal at 2024-04-28 01:54:53 UTC