Teaching situational awareness to children

I’m looking for ideas on how to teach situational awareness to small children. There was a recent attempted kidnapping of an 11 y/o on Florida on 19 May 2021. The girl fought the attacker who then left but was arrested later. How do we approach this topic with our children? A mother of a 2 y/o asked me and I didn’t have a good answer.

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Quiz them, live. “Did you notice X?” "What if you noticed Z?

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Unfortunately kids have it’s own thinking… usually crazy one… :face_with_raised_eyebrow:
But as the parents we have to think for them.

  1. be in right place on right time with right people
  2. do not talk alone with the stranger
  3. have an “emergency tool” handy (small whistle doesn’t look bad on kid’s neck)
  4. most kidnappings have car involved - teach your kids to run from the car using driver’s door only (these are never locked)

We are not able to predict everything, but better know basics than nothing.

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Watch psych :wink:

Seriously.

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A bunch of good points above.
I continued further searching (the person asking is my daughter) and found an excellent program for teaching kids. What is really nice is the author has created a program of games. The author has also graded the games based on the child’s age.

The series goes well beyond just watching out for bad actors in the streets and includes survival skills to handle many natural and man-made disasters. I can see this will be an phenomenal medium for interacting with children and grandchildren. Some of these I’ve been introduced to in the past in a theoretical sense (in survival training) but have never actually attempted. It makes sense to get some practical skills as that builds confidence and self-assuredness.

I’ve included all five links tot he five parts as the hyperlink to take one to the following link didn’t always work.

Semper fi.

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Very good points, and yes it does vary by age. One thing that I taught my kids (well taught is not quite right) was to listen to that inner voice. They feel something is not right, leave, get out, say something, whatever. Make noise, lots of noise if warranted. Never admonished for that feeling and letting us know about it.

The plus was we earned their trust, so later on when they hit teens, it was still there. Similar message… you end up somewhere (party etc.), and you need out or just want a ride… call. We will pick you up, no questions asked, nothing. Only had to do it a couple of times. :smiley:

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It’s difficult to teach a toddler situational awareness. At their stage of psychological development, very little exists outside their own sense of self. People and objects that they can see have no relevance except how it can be used by them (Can they eat it? Can they play with it?), and objects they cannot see might as well not even exist. This might describe some self-absorbed adults you know, but to a young child this is just survival. They can’t grow their own food or fight off dinosaurs, so they have to rely on the adults nearby.

Probably the best you can do at that early age is to teach them that some things are good and other things are bad. For example, every child has to touch the red stovetop to learn that they shouldn’t do it. You might not want to teach them about the Boogey Man yet (although that’s certainly one technique), but as they mature mentally and physically, you can gradually teach them that there are more “bad” things to avoid, including bad people.

I agree with this 100%. I had a molester that was close to my siblings and I from the age that I was 7 until 12. I couldn’t grasp what was wrong at the youngest age but as I got older, I felt something was wrong and that’s important for a child to understand even outside of a stranger trying anything. I am so glad I was bold enough to end the trauma and still tell my story to help others so yes, children even at a young age can develop the sense of understanding danger even if from a close relative or family friend.

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You’ve identified some important features relating to development. I went through all five of the links I posted and the author agrees with your assessment. The system presented is a lifetime (childhood) program for introduction to situational awareness. Agreed, no boogeyman talk is necessary when object permanence isn’t developed yet. The program appears to focus on the development of agency through acquiring life skills.

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Welcome to the family and God bless you brother. Enjoy your stay with your new family.

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@EricNH,
You have taken the first step by asking. I have taught both my boys as they grew to never talk to strangers, to never have their heads buried, to be alert of their surroundings, just to always look around. A good thing to do is role-plays while teaching them and discussing it with them. The USCCA has training videos and they use role-plays and actors. Do the same with your kids and talk to them about the dangers of not being alert. You will be surprised on how fast they learn and they will begin to ask you questions. I hope this advice helps and I’m sure you will get more responses regarding this thread.

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Thanks for the supportive comments. In your note your wrote “the dangers of not being alert.” You’ve helped me remember the importance of being in ‘Condition Yellow’ all the time. Introducing this will be a fun game to play.

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“Stranger Danger”

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I haven’t read it yet, so I don’t know if situational awareness is specifically covered, but perhaps check out Gavin DeBecker’s book, “Protecting the Gift.”

It’s on my bookshelf and now I need to actually read it.

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Situational awareness is a very important skill. But I think we have to be very careful with when, how and how much we teach our children.

Children have to deal with a lot of things out of their control so adding more uncertainty to their lives, especially if that uncertainty is based on fear of previously unknown threats, can have significant negative impacts. Kids need to feel safe.

I have seen some kids and more than a few adults who live in a state of perpetual paranoia due to their upbringing. Maybe this paranoia makes them “safer” from some threats but it more often negatively impacts their quality of life.

We need to make sure that any training we give our kids comes from a place of empowerment and not fear. And even if we are teaching from the highest place we need to make sure that the kids are actually being empowered as apposed to frightened. This isn’t always obvious.

I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules on when and how to do this as every child and every situation is different.

The above is not an indictment on any of the comments here. They all seem very well thought out and level headed. I will definitely be incorporating many of these ideas into my own interactions as I navigate these waters with my son.

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When I was real young my dad took me out in the woods where there was a lot of wild life. He had me sitting on a stump and he would point out noises and movements. Birds taking off all of a sudden. We saw a coyote trotting along the road. We saw some deer moving through the clearing while they were feeding. Then the grand finale, a herd of elk came through. He stated the idea of taking the time to stop and pay attention to what is around you to know what there is around you. He brought me over to a beaver dam but, no beavers could be seen but you know they were there. He showed taught me about tracking and seeing the bigger picture of what is going on.
This seems kind of off the subject but, it was the first training of situational awareness I received. Later I started learning how animals react to your presence and how they just act on a everyday account. I found when learning to tail someone without having them spot you that your situational awareness is key to keep from being detected. This also works the other way around with catching someone that may be following you.
There are many ways you can teach kids how to have situational awareness and it does not all have to be negative. Being able to spot a girl giving you twinkle eyes is a cool thing to be able to be aware of. Now it just gets me in trouble.

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Not off subject at all. Learning to be more aware of everything going on around us is the core of situational awareness. Especially in this digitally distracted world.

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