Safety First News
Articles
Turn fear into action, kids learn
by JosephMontes, The Tacoma News Tribune, June 8, 2006
Gig Harbor grade-schoolers take a special self-defense class that goes beyond conventional wisdom. They learn hands-on techniques instead.
Self defense for kids is growing up.
Simply telling kids not to talk to strangers isn’t enough, Bill Kortenbach says. In fact, it could be harmful.
Kortenbach is co-owner of Safety First Personal Protection Strategies, a Tacoma nonprofit that teaches children how to spot and deal with potential attackers.
He and his staff of volunteers were invited to Gig Harbor by grade school teachers for three days this week to share the philosophy of using raw emotions as motivation to take action.
“Fear, guilt and anger all get such a bad rap,” Kortenbach said. “It’s what we do with them that can be positive or negative.”
For Kortenbach, a fifth-degree black belt in karate, that means being prepared to use physical violence, or what he terms “Full-force adrenal response.”
In what looked like a boot camp in the school gym Wednesday, Harbor Heights Elementary children were taught how to disable people by kicking them in the groin and shoving them back. Men in black football pads and oversized helmets played the role of attackers.
The goal was to inspire fear and create a memory that will lead children to act in a real-life situation.
One of the volunteers is George Warnell, a lifelong friend of Kortenbach who brings his 12-year-old daughter, Annabell, to help. He said Safety First formed in response to the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Both Warnell and Kortenbach were inspired by the passengers of United Flight 93.
The group began teaching adults but has been making an effort to get into more schools.
“If you want to get a good apple, you’ve got to go to the ones on the tree, not the ones in the barrel,” Warnell said.
Kortenbach echoes this philosophy. He criticizes other self-defense courses for educating parents and teachers when children should be the focus.
Others might ignore the fact that attackers are often someone the victim knows or even a family member, he said.
“The idea that predators are going to be someone scary to kids is very misleading,” Kortenbach said. “It’s so much easier to pint the finger at strangers.”
When children are taught not to talk to strangers, they might be cut off from a source of potential help, he said. Children must learn how to identify someone who is friendly and trustworthy.
Physical education teacher Dave Rucci said parents and teachers in gig Harbor support this kind of education. No parents declined to let their children attend, he said.
“In our school, we work very hard at child safety and anti-bullying,” Rucci said. “Our job is to give kids tools to be safe.”
For 11-year-old Claire O’Brien-Lambert, the class brought a measure of safety to her life. The fifth-grader said she sometimes feels unsafe on the busy streets of Southern California when she goes to visit her grandmother.
“Knowing what to do makes me feel certain,” she said.