Kids Without Fear

One of the things we talk about constantly at Sentinel Combatives is situational awareness. In fact, I would argue that it is probably one of the most important things we teach. If you see a problem early enough, recognize that something is wrong, and make a good decision before the situation gets worse, there is a pretty good chance you will never have to use any of the physical skills we spend so much time practicing.

That sounds simple enough with adults. It gets a little more complicated when we start talking about our kids.

As parents, we obviously want our children to be safe. The problem is that sometimes, in our effort to protect them, we can go too far in the other direction. We can make the world sound like a terribly dangerous place filled with people waiting around every corner to hurt them. That may create awareness, but it may also create fear, and I don't think those are the same thing.

I don't want a child walking through Walmart terrified of every stranger who looks at them. I do want them to notice what is happening around them.

There is a big difference.

When our kids are young, I think situational awareness should start less as a lesson about danger and more as a lesson about paying attention. Where did we park the car? What entrance did we come through? What does the person at the cash register look like? Where is Mom standing? Where is Dad? If we got separated right now, where would you go?

You can teach a tremendous amount without ever using the words threat, predator, kidnapping, or self-defense.

Make it normal to look around.

Let your child lead you back to the car every once in a while. Ask them what they noticed when you walked into a restaurant. Ask them where the exits are. Not because you expect the restaurant to suddenly burst into flames or get attacked by terrorists, but because noticing your surroundings should simply become something they do.

We teach children to look both ways before crossing the street without convincing them that every automobile is trying to run them over. Situational awareness can be taught in much the same way.

Pay attention because paying attention is smart.

As kids get a little older, the conversation can grow with them.

For years, we taught children about "stranger danger." There is certainly nothing wrong with teaching a child not to wander off with someone they don't know, but the problem with the idea is that danger doesn't always come from strangers. Sometimes the person creating the problem is somebody the child recognizes.

That means we have to teach something a little more useful than simply deciding whether somebody is a stranger.

We have to teach boundaries.

A child should know that being an adult does not automatically give someone the right to make them uncomfortable. They should know that they do not have to keep secrets from Mom and Dad because another adult told them to. They should know that someone knowing their name does not mean they should go somewhere with that person. Most importantly, they should know that they can tell us when something feels wrong.

That last part may be harder for parents than it sounds.

If we want our children to tell us when something happens, we have to be the kind of parents they are comfortable telling.

If a kid believes the first response is going to be yelling, punishment, or a lecture about how stupid they were, there is a pretty good chance they are going to start deciding which things Mom and Dad actually need to know.

That is probably not the system we want.

I would much rather have a child tell me about something that turns out to be nothing than keep something important to themselves because they are afraid of how I will react.

There is another phrase I think kids should hear from us from a pretty young age: you are allowed to leave.

If somebody makes you uncomfortable, move away from them.

You do not have to stand there trying to determine whether your feeling is justified. You do not need enough evidence to convict somebody in court. You do not have to worry about hurting a stranger's feelings.

Just move.

Come back to Mom or Dad. Walk toward an employee. Go find the teacher. Move toward other families. Whatever makes sense for the environment.

If you were wrong, wonderful. Nothing happened.

This is one of those places where adults are often worse than kids. We have spent our entire lives being taught to be polite, so we stand around in uncomfortable situations trying to convince ourselves that we are overreacting.

Sometimes we are.

I would still rather move.

You can apologize later.

The same idea applies when families get separated in public. It happens. One parent thinks the child is with the other parent, somebody stops to look at something, everyone keeps walking, and suddenly nobody knows where anybody is.

That does not need to become a terrifying conversation with children. It just needs a plan.

Our family should know what we do when we get separated.

Young kids probably shouldn't wander through the building trying to find Mom and Dad while Mom and Dad are simultaneously wandering through the building trying to find them. Find an employee. Stay in one place. Go to whatever location the family agreed upon. As children get old enough, make sure they know a parent's full name and phone number.

Again, none of this has to be scary.

It is just what we do.

We have plans for fires. We have plans for severe weather. Schools practice drills all the time. Having a family plan does not mean we spend our lives waiting for something terrible to happen.

It just means we thought about it before we needed it.

As children become teenagers, situational awareness starts looking more like what we teach adults.

The phone becomes a big part of the conversation.

Watch people walk across a parking lot sometime. Half of them are looking at a screen. Teenagers certainly aren't the only ones guilty of this. Plenty of adults are just as bad, probably including me from time to time.

But if your face is buried in your phone, you are voluntarily giving up a tremendous amount of information about what is happening around you.

You don't need to walk around scanning rooftops like you are patrolling Baghdad. Just look up.

Notice the person walking toward you.

Notice the car that has been slowly following you through the parking lot.

Notice that somebody is standing unusually close.

Notice when someone keeps trying to talk to you after you have clearly indicated that you are not interested.

Notice when the situation changes.

Most of situational awareness isn't particularly exciting.

That is probably why people don't talk about it nearly as much as fighting.

There is nothing sexy about walking away from something before it becomes a problem.

There is no cool video to post afterward.

Nobody gets to tell the story about the devastating technique they used.

You just go home.

That is a pretty good outcome.

The more I teach combatives, the more convinced I become that one of the greatest gifts we can give children is not the ability to fight. Fighting may eventually be part of the equation, and I absolutely believe kids should know that if somebody tries to take them somewhere or physically hurt them, they have permission to yell, hit, kick, bite, scratch, run, and generally make themselves as difficult to deal with as possible.

But that is the far end of the problem.

Long before we get there, I would rather give them the confidence to notice something early and act on it.

I want kids who look around.

I want kids who know where their parents are.

I want kids who understand their boundaries.

I want kids who know that "no" is a perfectly acceptable answer.

I want kids who are willing to move away from somebody who makes them uncomfortable.

And I want them to know that if something does happen, Mom and Dad are the people they come to.

None of that requires raising paranoid children.

In fact, I think the opposite is true.

Competence tends to reduce fear.

When you know what to do, the world becomes a little less frightening.

That is ultimately what we are trying to accomplish at Sentinel Combatives anyway. We don't train because we want to spend our lives expecting violence. We train so that we can recognize problems, make good decisions, protect ourselves when necessary, and then get back to living our lives.

Our kids deserve the same thing.

Let them explore.

Let them play.

Let them meet people.

Let them experience the world.

Just teach them to keep their eyes open while they do it.

That is situational awareness.

And that is a much better lesson than teaching them to be afraid.

Peace Through Chaos.