Safe Kids, Endangered Shabbat Guests
Sunday, March 4th 2012 @ 5:02 AM
David, a thirty-year-old family friend, came over for a Shabbat dinner and picked up five-year-old Yossi by his armpits so that the two of them were face to face. “Put me down,” Yossi said.
“No,” answered David.
“Put me down!!!” yelled Yossi.
“No,” answered David calmly. This was his idea of playfully teasing.
Yossi did what any normal son of a self-defense teacher would do in this situation. He kicked. It was strictly by coincidence that his foot was at the level of David’s groin.
What could I say? Self-defense for children is a tricky field. Kids tend to take what we say very literally. They have a hard time with nuance.
I had taught my own children (and thousands of others) that:
*No one has the right to touch your body without your permission.
*It doesn’t matter if the person is a family member or friend.
*Use words first. Say, 'No!' Say, 'This is not my mother!' Say, 'Put me down now!'
*Yell. This will make the attacker realize that you are serious. It will also attract attention from others.
*You have the right to hit people, even grown-ups, if they don’t respect your boundaries.
*If someone says, 'Don’t tell anyone,' pretend to agree, then immediately go tell a parent or a teacher.”
“Mommy,” Yossi said, “David wouldn’t put me down. He touched my body without permission.”
“Yes, I noticed,” I replied, as David rolled around on the floor, groaning. What could I say? Yossi had just done what I’d taught him to do.
David went on to father children, thank G-d. He and Yossi remained good friends despite this incident. I did a lot of soul-searching about my self-defense curriculum, but I decided that it was better to err on the side of extremism than to ask children to differentiate between truly dangerous and mildly annoying behavior. Better to have them over-react than under-react.
And in case you’re wondering, David never picked up Yossi again. Instead they played chess and found other ways to playfully interact that were a bit safer. For David, that is.
