amitymamaThe Attachment Parenting Community

MotherMoon · 03-27-2006, 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mamax4

That's just plain frightening.

I don't think it's ever a child's responsibility to protect themselves, however. And now we know terrorizing our children with stories, and acting out scenarios of how they 'can' supposedly save themselves is only putting fear in them. Fear to no good end.

I respectfully completely disagree. It is ultimately only the child who can protect themselves. Even if I am only 2 ft away. I may not be safe. I may not be able to intervene for some reason. I also have two children. How do I choose which one to help if both are in danger? Ideally, yes, I would protect my children at all times. But, my world is far from ideal. I am not always with them. And, even if we are togther, I may not be in touching distance. I rarely am for that matter. Things happen in a split second. Even prior to seeing this video, I would never rely on a stranger to protect my children.

This information does initially scare my children. But, knowledge is power. We discuss how this can happen, probably won't but that there are bad guys/girls in the world. We discuss that just like Mommy takes steps to protect herself, and Daddy does too, it is important for them to protect themselves and know what to do should someone they don't know or don't like touches them. It is age appropriate and so is what they should do. It is balanced delicately to make sure they are knowledgable and aware and not fearful of their surroundings. They see me and DH take steps to protect ourselves daily. It is not odd to them. Not including them would probably seem more odd.

I do not want my girls relying on someone ever for their protection or anything else (after they are old enough to support themselves). Only you can know your faults and failings. You cannot know someone else's. By relying on that someone else, you are placing yourself at the hand of their faults and failings. That is a huge risk. One I don't take.

mamatanya · 03-27-2006, 04:59 PM

I think it was on discovery channel - The Secret Life of the Brain where they had a social experiment that showed that most people will not help someone in a busy situation. Everyone thinks/hopes that someone else will deal with it. For this they had a woman lying on a sidewalk and people just passed by. Same thing with a young girl alone.
I remember the whole don't talk to strangers thing from pre school. Scared me. And did not protect me from the people I knew who hurt me.
Been thinking a lot about how I will handle this when I have two and my attention more easily divided.
As to the self defense for those under 18. I don't remember what they changed the name to but model mugging did have kids as young as 11/12. It's a great, hands on self defense course. The problem with most self defense is that ours brains freeze, we need muscle memory to really respond.

ChantingMama · 03-27-2006, 06:15 PM

Yeah, muscle memory for the physical techniques, but they don't only teach that kind of stuff. They teach tricks for just keeping safe, and they teach empowerment, that yes, you DO have a chance at doing this, and yes, it IS okay to try gouge and hurt...before those courses, I used to think I would baulk at permanently damaging somebody, even if they were trying to hurt me, but the teachers helped me realize that I need to do whatever I can to protect myself.

And I also don't agree with not telling the kids anything, because they don't stand a chance, and it is just going to scare them. I was raised with an extremely safety conscious mother, who was always reinforcing safety techniques. Just simple things, like when we are walking down the street, and somebody passes that make you nervous, how to have a look to see if they are just keeping on going. Or even, just which part of the sidewalk to walk on to be safer (the outside edge, away from corners, hedges, and other hiding places, fyi, but if there are a lot of parked cars, down the middle, and keep scanning ahead for anything wierd, and on the well-lit side of the street)

You might think that will just raise a paranoid kid, but I don't think I am paranoid, I am empowered, and more likely to NOT get into trouble, than say, most of my friends, who do some incredibly dumb, unsafe things still, which completely boggle my mind! lol

I guess that comes under flexing and training the mind muscles, so you are always ready to respond if the time comes.