The 12 Days of Safety List

1. Teach your children situational awareness—according to Definitions.net situational awareness is the perception of environmental elements with respect to time and/or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and their status after some variables have changed, such as time, or other variable, such as a predetermined event.

To use lay people, speak, it simply means being aware of your surroundings and being in a heightened sense to changes that could affect your safety or personal protection. Wikidot states there are three levels of situational awareness:

The first, Perception of elements in current situation. “The first step in achieving SA involves perceiving the status, attributes, and dynamics of relevant elements in the environments.

The second, Comprehension of current situation. They premise that level two goes beyond simply being aware but rather a wholistic approach that pays particular attention to patterns processing irregularities and a comprehension of the significance of events.

The third SA is the Projection of future status. This is the ability to project future actions of the elements in the environment. Basically, if this happens, your mind is already formulating the next steps down the road and actively looking at plan C and D and pulling audibles like a quarterback in football.

I already know you are asking yourself how do I teach this to my kid, who can barely focus on one thing for 5 seconds?

The website living life in rural Iowa has 5 suggestions:

Play games with your children, they suggest “I spy with my little eye something…” which I think is ingenious. While in doctors’ offices or while waiting for food at a restaurant, you can ask the kids to pick out an obscure color or object that they normally would not notice. Make it game, for instance “Name 5 things that are (Color) or start with 3 things that start with the (letter). These both can be great for license plates. Another is a game of finding a license plate from out of state or a game of memorizing license plate numbers.

They also suggest leaving electronics at home. I’ll just go ahead and say, good luck with this one! But I think they may be on to something if you can institute this without having a mutiny.

Teaching your children to be leery of strangers seems really obvious but it is also counter-intuitive of societal norms. We as parents do a big disservice to our kids by reinforcing, we should be friendly in line when the nice lady asks their name, or when we encourage our little ones to show how old she is with fingers. It is conflicting information for the small fries, in one breath we cheer it on and give the visual cues for them to be overtly social but in the same breath we teach them not to talk to strangers. Not to accept candy from the socially inept guy in the paneled van. I know we do not realize we do this. But a healthy respect for the stranger dynamic should be instilled. As a grandparent to a 6-year-old I find myself pushing her to tell her name, count or read to a stranger because it makes me feel good. But we must realize that the bad guy can look like that old lady in line, the clean-cut college kid, or another child.

We need to teach our children to look for the good guys. Just like be on guard of strangers, they need to know who the good people are, the helpers. The firemen, pastors, police officers and teachers of the world—these are the good guys.

Confident kids are a must. We must instill that. Not cockiness but a confidence. If children look like they are in control of themselves and their environments, research has shown they are less likely to become targets. They should be taught to look people in the eyes, be assertive with body language, and to be vocal if someone is bothering them. They should be comfortable looking around the room and noticing everyone.

The Center for Missing and Exploited Kids estimates that over 27,000 kids go missing each year. 5% are family abductions, and 1% are non-family abductions—that’s over 2,700 kids snatched by strangers a year through ruses, ambush or other methods. If your children are more aware and keenly astute of their surroundings, they have less of a chance of succumbing to this fate.

2.  Try not to park next to taller vehicles at the mall, especially on both sides- parking between two tall vehicles can camouflage and give cover to would be robbers, rapist, carjackers or any other deviant that would do you harm. An assailant can lie in wait for an unsuspecting victim to pull in, half distracted and with an accomplice slide a van door open and pull you right in. This becomes a perfect hiding spot.

3.  Have your key in your hand and between two fingers clinched in a fist as you walk to your car. This can be an effective weapon when punching into soft tissue. Parking garages and parking lots are a predator’s best friend. Crime Safety and Security tells of several accounts where bad guys approached women in parking lots and garages with guns and knives demanding they get in the car with them. Fortunately, these women kept their wits and managed to scream and run. They profile the predators favorite parking lot target: 

• Someone looking friendly, timid, lost, absent minded, or intoxicated
• Someone wearing earphones or distracted with a cell phone
• Someone unaware she’s being followed
• Someone “handcuffed” with both arms loaded with packages or even a baby
• Someone parked close to trucks or taller SUV’s

How many times have you been one or all of these?!

The authors at Crime Safety and Security recommend pepper spray   or a personal security alarm. And the biggest nugget I got from their site, beware of the good Samaritan. This is the ruse that the distracted, overly friendly, or the naive simply fall for the most.

4.  Don’t fumble around looking for keys- have them out and ready before getting to the car or house. Self-explanatory. Have your keys ready at all times. Keys can serve as a make shift weapon in a pinch, and they can make you look prepared and less of a target.

5.  Keep your head on a swivel as you walk —scan the lot. Your head should be on a swivel, scanning and your situational awareness should be in a heightened state, and on guard. Your most powerful tool for your personal safety is your alertness combined with intuition.

6.  Trust your gut! I cannot stress this one enough! If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck—it probably is a duck. If your senses tell you something is not quite right, trust them. God gave us that internal alarm for good reason, do not ignore it. If it goes off, its probably right and warning you of some danger. LISTEN TO YOUR GUT! This goes hand in hand with Situational Awareness. Terri Howard, writes very explicitly on the subject in FEI Workforce Resilience and explains Cooper’s Colors.  John Dean “Jeff” Cooper, a United States Marine, is responsible for Cooper’s Colors. 

Cooper’s Colors. Cooper’s Colors are a set of criteria by which to gauge the level of danger within a given scenario to highlight how important gut is to situational awareness.

Cooper’s Colors are:

• White – Unaware, unprepared and unconcerned. This is the normal state of mind when you are in the safety of your home.
• Yellow— Attentive but relaxed. This is the normal state of mind when out in public, such as when you are running errands or visiting the grocery store. While this keeps threats remote to your person, it facilitates a distance that allows you to notice the nice things in life without immediate cause for concern.
• Orange— Your focus becomes directed at a potential threat. Now you must start planning a strategy in case the potential threat become concrete and imminent. Ideally, you will avoid the situation altogether.
• Red— Imminent danger exists, and immediate action is needed. You must make the decision to run, hide/take cover or fight.
• Black— You are actively applying an appropriate level of justifiable force—firearm, pepper spray or improvised weapon—to neutralize an imminent threat to life and limb. If you are actively being robbed or hurt, then you may need to comply with demands. (It is crucial a firearm never be used unless you are extensively trained to ensure proficiency, familiar with state laws and prepared to kill someone to defend your own life.)

It is good practice combining these color charts and trusting your gut.