NEVER BE ABDUCTED, Part IV: Training Your Child To Survive Abduction Attempts
NEVER BE ABDUCTED Part IV
Training Your Child To Survive Abduction Attempts
By Hammer
This is for all you wonderful Safety Coaches (parents) everywhere who are teaching your children survival skills against sexual predators/kidnappers: By all means keep teaching your kids crucial skills and techniques to recognize, evade and escape from these miscreants, but please don’t stop until you have taught them what to do if they are abducted.
In another post I will talk about exactly how to teach your child these necessary skills in a non-frightening way (in other words, make it fun, non-threatening), but, in this limited venue, let’s concentrate for now and what skills/techniques you need to teach:
So, Your Child IS Abducted. Now What?
- ATTITUDE. Once again, the Survival Psyche, or Attitude (Is Everything) I have spoken about in so many postings is critical. Keep instilling in your child the psyche to never, ever give up. One of the results of this type of survival sensitivity is that attitude is often communicated intrinsically, meaning, because of this attitude your child gives off an aura of confidence and readiness that often prevents him from being a victim in the first place. If abducted, however, this attitude forms the foundation that supports the things he/she has to do to escape.
- BREATHE AND BELIEVE: Without training, or, even with the proper training, 9 out of 10 children will stop breathing and thinking when snatched. Whatever skills they were taught are immediately forgotten due to the ensuing mental freeze (oxygenated blood fails to reach the brain), creating the ideal victim for the monster (think of a frozen rabbit, a deer in the headlights). Simplistic as it sounds, go through Breathing Drills with your children at the start of every self defense move.
- INVOKE THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE: When the Bad Guy gets the child in his car he assumes that he has his prey right where he wants him/her. Away from the public initial crime scene, isolated in a car, away from public view, and on the way to an even more isolated secondary crime scene where he will have infinity to do what he wants to the child. This phenomenon will give your child at least a sliver of hope to escape with the following moves:
- GIVE YOUR CHILD PERMISSION TO BE “BAD.” All of the escape moves are performed with extreme suddenness and power (see the S.N.E.A.K Attack strategy in the last post) against an adult. Your child must not hesitate to act because of any social mores he or she may have inculcated in the past.
Ø Escape Strategies To Avoid Being Placed in the Vehicle:
· As he opens the door he will loosen his grip. This is the time to wiggle, kick, head butt and try the Drop, Lock and Roll that I have advocated in previous postings (latch on to his legs with hands, spin and lock your ankles around his feet, slide to the ground on your back and spin around).
· As he tries to force you into the car feet first, place your feet against the seat and drive backwards as hard as you can. This surprise move may loosen the Bad Guy’s grip, giving you an opening. Another move designed to delay entry could be to grab hold of the metal seat belt fastener at the top of the door, or grab hold of the post that should be right in front of you.
· Improvised Weapons: Teach your child that anything he or she has in his/her hands can be used against the Bad Guy. Cell phones, plastic water bottles, wallets, backpacks, rocks, sticks, et al. have been wielded as a means to escape the Bad Guy’s clutches.
· Okay. You are Inside the Car. What now?
Ø Surprise move number 1. Invoke the Expected by Doing the Unexpected. In other words, do what the Bad Guy expects. Start sobbing and slide over and hug the Bad Guy. Ahh, I really have him now, he will think. Now, jump into his arms your face against his and bite him, gouge his eyes, reach and grab the keys from the ignition and toss them into the back seat, start screaming and making a scene. The last thing the Bad Guy wants to do is drive on a public road with a child latched on to him screaming in desperation. This would be a perfect time – as his hands go to his eyes to protect them from further damage (or, in an instinctive move that almost all of us perform when our eyes are attacked) – to quickly slide back to the passenger door, unlock it, and escape (a skills that a Safety Coach can easily teach during scenario training using a family car, etc.).
Ø Scenario Training: Teach your child escape and evasion skills through scenarios. One of which could be escaping from the trunk of an abductor’s car: this is a very scary subject, but it can be taught in a fun way. Show your child how to kick out the taillights (without doing it, of course) and how to stick an object through the opening(s) to draw a motorist’s attention.
By Hammer