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The Three Sure-Fire Ways to Teach Your Child About Safety by: Michelle Annese We understand that for your child to be truly 'Kid Safe'¯ that they must understand and use two types of self defense. Physical, which gives them the tools needed to keep them safe. And mental self defense, which empowers them with the awareness and common sense to keep them safe. This article is geared toward educating parents on helping your child with the mental self defense to better make them 'Kid Safe'¯. Levels of Safety By teaching our children there are different levels of safety and those levels depend on the situation they are in and the decisions they make in those situations, we can better train them to use their instincts, intuition, and even fear as safety tools. This is an easy way to explain to our children how to trust these instincts. 'Every time we travel through a busy intersection, there are traffic lights there to tell us if it is safe to pass through. If the light is green, that tells us it is safe to pass, if the light is yellow that means we must use caution and to be careful and to prepare to stop. If the light turns red, that means danger and do not proceed or you may become hurt in an accident. We can use these same lights, instead of traffic lights, as safety lights, to know when we are safe, to use caution, or to let us know we are in personal danger. If our safety light is green'¦.. This means we are safe and everything is normal. If our safety light turns yellow'¦..This means that our intuition, instincts, or our gut feeling is telling us something is wrong! If your safety light turns red'¦..This means we are in immediate danger and have to act fast. We have to train ourselves to recognize different situations we are in and be aware when that situation makes our safety light change from green to yellow or to red. When our safety light turns yellow this is the time to slow down listen to our little voice inside of us called intuition, think about the situation we are in, and what is the best course of action to take to keep us safe and return us to a green light. For example, We are swimming and we notice that the water is really deep and we are becoming tired...we should return to the shallow water and take a break, which would return us to our green light. But if we continue to swim in the deep water, we may become tired and find our self in a dangerous, red light situation. Our head is beginning to hurt and mom is a sleep'¦ instead of waking and asking her for some medicine, we look in the medicine cabinet and find what appears to be the aspirin she normally gives us'¦ and we take it. This is defiantly a red light situation, because you could be taking the wrong medicine and become very sick. But if you had just woke mom up and told her you had a headache, you would have stayed safely in the green light. Someone knocks on the door of your house. Anytime this happens, as a child you need to understand that this is a yellow safety light and you need to proceed with caution. First you never open the door unless you and your parents personally know the person. Like a friend of the family or a neighbor. If you do not know the person, which means have you never seen your parents speak to this person, you never open the door. Even if they say they are a policeman, fireman, or repairman. The decision that you should make to put yourself in the green light, would be to go find your parents and let them open the door. If you open the door, you could be putting yourself in a red light dangerous situation. If your parents are not home you should never, never, open the door for anyone. This is always a safety red light. A person at school that is known to be a bully is standing at the end of the play ground. Knowing this your safety light immediately turns yellow. If you avoid that end of the playground your light will return to green, if you go to that end of the playground you may find your self in a safety red light. By being aware of our surroundings and making smart decisions when we are in our yellow caution light, we can get back to our green safe light and avoid the red danger light. Remember, it is OK to be afraid when our safety light turns yellow. Fear is what helps our intuition and instincts work. We should always trust our instincts and listen to our little voice inside. Remember, our little voice is always right.'¯ Parents, by arming our children with mental safety so they can make quick, safe decisions, it gives them the confidence and focus to handle any type of situation and safeguard them for the future. About The Author Michelle Annese is a self defense and security specialist teaching martial arts classes and seminars for over 15 years. She is the author of 'SafeGuard System for Kids' and 'Protection For Women'. For more information on how to protect your child from strangers, bullies, and build them up with kid power and confidence go to http://www.michelleannese.com and check out other safety articles and sign up for a free safety tips e-newsletter. michelle@michelleannese.com This article was posted on January '23
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