My daughter finished up a curriculum that was taught in her third grade class about Empowering Personal Safety with children. It was created by the parents of Elizabeth Smart, who was abducted years ago. I had heard of this curriculum, but was interested to see it in person.
My opinion about it was that the idea behind it is a good one. Children should be equipped with some personal safety knowledge, self defense techniques, and understand that they are in control of their own selves. However, this curriculum (at least the way it was taught to my daughter and her classmates) left the kids feeling like they might get kidnapped and if they did, they could beat them up and run away. It reminded me of the scare-tactics we used to learn in the 80's for razor blades in our halloween candy and other urban myths.
I was not impressed with the curriculum, although my daughter liked being able to shout
"NO!" in the face of the big, bad, stranger who approached her. It was really a police officer dressed in so much padding that the kids thought it was fun to hit the marshmallow man and run away. Some kids were even too scared to go up to the "bad man." Anyway...I would not recommend this program without some revisions to the curriculum and more parent involvement.
"NO!" in the face of the big, bad, stranger who approached her. It was really a police officer dressed in so much padding that the kids thought it was fun to hit the marshmallow man and run away. Some kids were even too scared to go up to the "bad man." Anyway...I would not recommend this program without some revisions to the curriculum and more parent involvement.
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