How to Teach Kids Self Defense Without Teaching Them Martial Arts
Martial arts may appeal to many boys, but such self-defense skills is not for every child or parent. If you wish to make your child better able to protect himself without learning kicks and punches, consider enrolling them in self-defense classes that teach kids about detecting potentially dangerous situations and how to avoid them.
In Vermont, the Rutland City Police Department has been offering self-defense classes to children ages 3/12 to 12 years old. Their aptly named program, radKids, the shortened term for Resist Aggression Defensively, has been in the offing for a number of years already. The classes are held in the Rutland Recreation and Parks Department. Rutland Regional Medical Center also joins forces with the other departments in promoting the program.
radKids aims to provide children with “stranger danger” education. In class, kids learn about safety skills in personal empowerment. Active police officers lead the class, teaching children the various steps they can take if they feel they are in danger.
Kids also learn how to get away quickly from assailants. It’s made very clear to them that reacting immediately to danger is important and they needed to do what they can to make other people aware of the danger they’re in.
The program’s stranger danger education also includes helping kids recognize tricks that potential assailants may use to gain their trust as well as determine the different between touches that are good, bad, or uncomfortable. Home, school, and car safety tips are also taught.
Last but certainly not the least, the program ensures its young students understand that nobody ever has the right to inflict harm to them.
Parents should also do their best to instill the stranger danger philosophy in their children at home. It is important to impress upon their young minds that danger can come in all shapes and sizes.
In the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) website, an article reported how two women with blonde hair and in their early twenties had tried luring a 9-year-old schoolboy walking home from school with a lift. The boy had not responded. When the two women persisted in following him in their dark-colored four-wheel drive, this prompted the boy to run away. His mom had been able to pick him up at the next street.
In another ABC news article, the police had appealed for public help after an abduction attempt on a 9-year-old girl in Sydney. The girl, who had also been walking home, was approached by a man wearing a balaclava. He attempted to grab her wrist but when she was able to break free, the assailant had jumped into a white van, where another man was waiting on the wheel.
image credits to David Kelly
Tags: kids martial arts, self defense course, self defense lesson