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Sunday, November 1, 2009

Preparing the Kids

Sir,

Thanks for your blog, and book.

You've mentioned you have small children. How do they protect themselves? Or, how do you teach them to protect themselves Do they become victims of the same kind of violence mounted against adults? Your book portrays a country that is unsafe - yet surely your kids must travel to and from school?

My children are aged 8 and under - how do you possibly prepare a child for what's ahead? They aren't getting a glock for christmas ;)

Thanks,

Christine

Hi Christine. Yes, I have two boys. One is seven and the other one just turned 1 year old.

We do our best to protect them and we’ve got things organized in such a way that we minimize risk as much as possible.

Kids are victims just like adults. There’s no criminal code anymore, they shoot and hurt little children just as well, a mother with a child is an easy victim. My wife herself, she was taken hostage when very little during a home robbery, they put a gun to her head.

We don’t go to places that are not that safe, we don’t go out at night with them, try to avoid doing so ourselves too. School is just a block away.

Of course this isn’t much of a life, and few people are this paranoid about security but we are, mostly because we don’t see this situation of ours as permanent and hope to move soon, so we don’t want to get sloppy when we are closest to leaving the country.

How do we prepare them? Well, we bring them up tough. A minimum amount of whining is tolerated, I encourage my son to fight and teach him to do so, he’s got to solve problems himself, even at school.

When playing I teach him how to punch, kick, step on the foot and hit with the head when grabbed from behind, among others. You can play and teach them as well.

He goes to a good private school, bilingual, but even there, schools here are a bit different to what Americans are used to. He has to learn to defend himself since teachers rarely do anything about bullies and such. There’s even a boy in his class that brings a knife to school and threatens classmates with it, yet no one does anything about it. Such a thing, if reported in USA, would have the boy most likely expelled or at least the knife taken away from him, but here that’s not the case.

A few weeks ago for example, a bully grabbed my son and wouldn’t let go. My son kneed him in the groin and punched him in the face. Since we “play” fight ever day, he punches real good. The boy dropped to the floor and stayed there, crying.

That day we received a note from school saying that Tommy kicked a boy in the testicles and punched him in the face, and that we should talk with him about it. Well, I did, and congratulated him for defending himself when he explained to me what happened.

In more normal schools, in a serious country, I’d tell him to go talk to the teacher if he has a problem with a classmate, but here they have to learn to fend for themselves.

He’s a good boy, a bit too quick to solve problems with his little fists, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

We went shooting for the first time a couple weeks ago. He shot for the first time with a real gun, a 22LR. Of course, I was behind him at all times.

I used to walk to school and back home when I was a bit older than my son is right now, walked the two blocks. But times have changed and its no longer safe. Some parents don’t care, but we do, and I know its not the same anymore.

FerFAL

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your story reminded me of another tale of when knives in schools were not a problem:

The American Police State vs. Little Boys
Paul Craig Roberts on how things change out from under us.

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/index.php/2009/04/20/how-things-change-out-from-under-us/

It's terrible that in both our countires, Ar & US, things are changing so much that knives need to be taken away or a kid expelled, what's wrong with people these days, is there something in the air? What is it with lust for money and power over others and demoralization being so widespread?

... sigh.

You might want to teach them the newer lithium batteries explode and to never mix brands, or old and new ones. I had no idea myself:

http://backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/2009/10/07/use-dedicated-batteries-in-your-high-tech-illumination-tools/#comments

BulgarWheat said...

Ferfal

I've taught both my daughter and son to fight back. I also take both of them to the range. It's actually a lot of fun for the whole family.

One of the problems I'm trying to figure out is having adequate clothing on hand as they outgrow the clothes and shoes they have now. Like food, water, and other essentials, having adequate clothing on hand for them is a challenge that I haven't quite figured out.

Anonymous said...

To BulgarWheat- one solution to having future clothing for them is to go to yard sales and get progressively larger size clothes and shoes for them, estimating the growth that they'll experience year to year. This way you'll be buying clothes for pennies on the dollar. I've used yard sales for years as a great resource for inexpensive prepping supplies.

Ken said...

In most U.S. schools the police would have been called and the boy handcuffed and arrested. He would probably also then be expelled from school.

Yes, things have changed.

BulgarWheat said...

Anonymous, I have thought about that. Shoes and other more personal items are not good candidates for yard-sales.

I had a job years ago at an Air Force Base. I used to have to go outside to have a smoke. My wife picked up clothes at yard sales and frankly that was alright with me. One day outside having a smoke, one of the ladies who also worked at the base brought to my attention a "price-tag" for the khakis I was wearing was still stuck to my pant leg. Not one of my finer moments, but it didn't embarrass me too much. Kinda funny really.

Jackets, sweaters, jeans, and sweats are fine.

Somethings however, not so much.

I got my wife a pink Glock G23, and my daughter a "Hello Kitty" Colt M4 22Lr. It's cute.

I'll let the boy have the scary black rifle M4 22Lr. I'll keep my old DPMS M4 .223.