There is so much thrown at our kids everyday about “bad guys” that are out there.
At home we have lots of rules to keep safe. Don’t open the door without Mom or Dad. Don’t tell people where you live. If you see a stranger (called don’t knows here) when you are out playing come and get me. Walk on the inside of the sidewalk.
At school it is much of the same. Don’t open the front doors during school hours, use the office. They have drills where they practice lock-down scenarios.
Don’t even get me started on TV. Even when we are watching something kid friendly you get the news commercials. “Tonight on the 5 o’clock news, find out what the abducted Northridge girl is now saying”.
What about the checkout line at the store? Nope, lots of headlines there.
We can’t fool ourselves. Our kids are hearing about bad guys. Maybe they should be hearing about them, to a degree. How can we expect them to stay safe if we don’t give them the tools necessary to arm themselves? I want my kids to know what to do if they ever meet “bad guy” and I want them to feel empowered and safe.
I doubt, and really hope, he will never run into a bad guy. But he learned during this class that no one has the right to hurt him and that it is okay to defend himself.
My friend told me about this program called radKids. There was a class starting at CSUN being put on by the CSUN police department. It was 5 days long and 2 hours each day. Chris took Bug to the first 4 days and I was very impressed by everything I was hearing. On Friday the whole family attended to watch the simulations that Bug would be put through to practice what he had been learning. I was very impressed! Here is a video of Bug doing the simulation.
They teach the kids to: Yell loud, hit hard, run fast.
Bug did amazing and I was so impressed. Now I have to make sure he doesn’t use his new “moves” on Peanut!
April 17th, 2013 at 3:33 am
Not use the moves unless warranted you mean ????
May 15th, 2013 at 8:55 pm
Oh yes! He better not use the “moves” on his brother.