Realistic Self-Defense for Kids

[mercop]

Recently I was reading one of the gun magazines and there was an article on self-defense techniques for kids. In the article there was a set of progression pictures showing a kid around 9 or so defending against his much larger older teenage brother. The pictures looked like an old Ju Jitsu text with lots of wrist grabbing and sidestepping. The last picture showed the victim with the attacker’s arms crossed in front of him and suggested that he was now in a position to through his attacker.

It is one thing when information is passed onto to adults that may be should be able to make intelligent decisions on their own, but when it comes to kids I have to throw the BS flag on the field. As Judo player myself and having two kids with a Judo background, I know that it takes it can take a few weeks to teach even the brightest kid to throw another kid his size, much less an adult.

My son was about seven and had been taking Judo for about a year when one day he informed me that if someone tried to grab him he would just use Judo. Needless to say we had a long talk.

Kids are much smarter than we give them credit for. In my experience as a father and teaching kids I think around four is a good time to start working with them on physical skills. My favorite to teach the little ones is the art of biting. In my opinion it is the only thing a little kid has against and adult. It is both natural and intuitive. Here is how to do it-

Get a bath towel and wrap it around your arm, secure both ends with duct tape.




Pull on the child and instruct them to pull a bit before turning into you biting your forearm. Even through the towel it will hurt you, you can use a thicker towel. The good thing is that this will give both you and the child confidence in the defense. As you yell or let go encourage them to run away.







The little girl in the picture is my seven-year-old Emilie, she is special needs and on a four year old level. She was able to comprehend the drill and follow directions within a few minutes allowing us to take the pictures.

Let them know to bite all targets of opportunity as hard as they can to get away. I don’t want to teach my kids to “fight” an attacker. I want them to know how to fight and get away as fast as possible like a cat fights when it does not want to be picked up.

Depending on the child I have found that around 7-8 you can start teaching strikes and kicks as well as improvised weapons like pens and pencils. Don’t teach them anything that encourages them to hold onto their attacker. The idea is to use massive pain as a tool to escape.

[Whiterook]

Um....HIV?

[mercop]

UM- someone is trying to abduct your kid to rape and/or murder them.. I will take my chances with HIV and HEP instead of my kid being the latest abduction on Fox News.- George

[son of the revolution]

Um....HIV?

Odds are against running into an HIV positive child attacker , in so much as a percentage of the population . Even if they did contract it , its VERY treatable with IMMEDIATE treatment , and either way , its better then living the nightmare of one of your kids being held and done God knows what to by a nut job , or finding them chopped into little pieces years later !

[Whiterook]

Yeah, a disease is better than being dead. I still think this idea is a little...off.

[mercop]

What would you propose that a child do to defend themselves from and adult?

[LittleRedToyota]

i like the idea of teaching young children to bite an attacker...combined with running and screaming the minute the attacker lets go, etc.

they might as well try something as doing nothing is almost certainly not going to end well at all...and i agree that biting does seem to be the best strategy (perhaps only strategy) available to them.

i never really thought about it and am far from an expert on kids, but it seems to make a lot of sense to me.

[duane1]

Nice job! I agree with biting. Do what ever you can, Bite then scream than bite some more. Maybe get a piece of flesh for DNA testing

[Whiterook]

What would you propose that a child do to defend themselves from and adult?

I personally think screaming would be the best bet, where are you going to have your child alone that you(or another responsible person) wouldn't hear them scream? Obviously there are cases where screaming wouldn't matter and I'm sure you say to do it as well as the biting.

I really don't think there is a good way for a child to defend themselves against an adult, even biting won't work all the time(but neither will a .44 Magnum). But, I'm still wary about telling a kid to plant their lips around a murderer or rapist(or both).

But I have no idea, you're obviously more qualified for this type of thing. It just rang a bunch of alarms in my head.

[biggs88]

Can't we teach em repeated swift kicks to the balls?????