Self defense for children

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

Your child is constantly bullied by peers or older kids. Someone will take away the car, playing in the sandbox, and appropriate it for themselves, someone will kick it in the kindergarten - the teacher cannot keep track of everyone, someone will put up the bandwagon near the entrance or call it "mama's boy", "little boy" or still somehow … Any parents immediately squeeze their hearts because the bad guys offended their beloved son, and the question arises before them: is it worth teaching a child to fight?

Quite often, families go to two extremes: the first is liberal, intelligent families, who are alien to violence, when parents become unnaturally pale, if a child, having come from kindergarten, suddenly gives out a strong word. Punishments here usually boil down to a short-term complaint that "you are already a big boy, you must understand that it is not good to do (speak, think, breathe) like this" or any restrictions - for example, financial. At the other extreme, when the cult of animal power is preached in the family, the child must deal with his own strength, for an example of such a parent, we can recall the sensational film "The Return", in which the father specifically catches the bully so that the older brother can take money away from him. And when this does not work out for him, the child is recognized as somewhat inferior.

In fact, it's easy to see that neither approach is 100% correct. Even if it is possible to create a kind of paradise on earth in the house, when the child cannot find a single sharp corner to bruise himself, then it is unlikely that fate will always be so merciful to him. Sooner or later the moment will come when the innate eloquence and educated intelligence may not be enough - especially since he does not necessarily have to fight - he will simply fall, hit and … lose the respect of all those present due to the banal inability to recognize and endure pain that is not only a consequence of the blow, but also very important information - what hurts, how it hurts, what kind of injury it indicates. After all, it is only from the experience of analyzing one's own sensations that one can easily figure out whether a bone is broken, a joint is dislocated or a ligament is stretched. And you can learn to understand your body only through your own experience. As one of Max Fry's books says - "what if tomorrow there is a nuclear explosion?" - the child must be ready to endure his pain without losing himself.

Second approach

When a child is taught from childhood to pain, taught to fight to the last, not to spare the enemy - this kind of self-defense is not very good for children. Firstly, excessive cruelty, perhaps, is a good help for a future male truck driver, but a very poor adviser in personal life, family matters, and even just in resolving the most common business disputes. Quite often, one hears even from the most senior politicians: "Yes, if I met him (here the opponent is meant) in a dark alley, I would show him!" This demonstrates the uttermost helplessness in a reasoned argument - it turns out that the discussion boils down to the usual comparison of muscles, as in the gibbon community. Human society, in my opinion, should use force in two cases - for energetic discharge of an organism sitting at a computer in the gym, or to eliminate a direct threat to life or physical health.

To resolve all other conflicts, words have long been invented, why not use them? As an additional argument against the cult of physical strength, one can also recall that in this case, the child may well develop sexual perversions. It cannot be said, of course, that sadism is definitely bad (since the hordes of sadomasochists will shower the author with rotten tomatoes), but are you sure that in the future you want to somehow find your wimpy child at home, who just accidentally strangled his wife (husband) in a fit of passion? Did you pray for Desdemona's night?..

What can be inferred from all of the above? It's very simple - you need to find a middle ground and this is self-defense for children!

A child should be able to defend himself, to cope with at least a not very sober bully or a raging peer, but you should not turn the whole process of education into mastering martial arts - unless you are the reincarnation of Bruce Lee and are going to raise an actor for the next filming of the film "The Raven", on who will kill him. The rules invented by Polanik for his "Fight Club" will be quite important here - the most important thing is that the child, learning to defend himself, learns to say stop.

Yes, of course, in everyday life opponents are rarely able to stop when they reach a certain point, but you must not forget that there is a baby in front of you, that he has much less strength than an adult, and his reactions have not yet reached perfection. Any training should take place according to the training method, and not a test for survival - if a child is tired, exhausted, and begins to respond more slowly, it means that the lesson must be stopped, even if he is out of stubbornness and tries to fight - after all, children are extremely rarely able to soberly assess their strength … However, like many adults.

And when an eight-year-old girl tries to fight on an equal footing with a forgotten forty-year-old father, it can end very sadly for both. For example, a broken father's rib … and this also happens - after all, no one had taught the child to stop before, and he simply did not pay attention to the fact that the parent fell unsuccessfully.

You can, of course, send your children to a special section of martial arts or some other sports section. However, first you need to talk with the parents of other children who are already studying there or simply with the coaches of the same area - it is very important that there are no frequent cases of injuries - after all, not every teacher adapts the rules for teaching Japanese mercenaries (for which the age limit for entering school is one year) for ordinary city children who are tortured from birth with allergies, scoliosis, anemia, myopia (myopia) and excessive parental care, who for some reason were sure that if a child is released into the sun before the age of five, then he, in accordance with the best vampire movies, it will burn right there.

If everyone collectively prays for the coach, and no one in the second lesson will require children to break bricks with their foreheads, then it is better to let a professional be engaged in his training, because good physical shape will not interfere with any excellent student. Just do not combine freestyle wrestling with playing the violin - after all, I work here different muscle groups, and injuries in sports are inevitable, so sooner or later the child will either fail a concert or a competition, and this will not do him any good. And besides, it is not easy to imagine how some Arnold Schwarzenegger with a violin in his hands will look like.

So the conclusion is simple enough:

To make life easier in society, the ability to stand up for oneself is a very useful thing, but self-defense for children should not become an obsessive paranoid idea and the meaning of life. The harmony of physical and mental development is the pinnacle to which every parent should strive.