radKIDS teaches self-defense
A 5-year-old Edith Bowen student can be found pepper spraying the face of a mannequin in the gymnasium while other students are learning how to create a coded language with their family. CIA training? No, Personal Empowerment Safety Education has reached Utah State University’s campus and parents are ecstatic.
“They love it,” Judy Crockett, radKIDS (resisting aggression defensively) instructor, said.
radKids is a program designed to educate children between the ages of 5 and 11 in how to be safe in a fire, at home, school, in public and around strangers. They are taught various methods of defense, both verbal and physical, that brings their self-assurance “higher and higher” said Crockett, who works full time as the dispatch director for USU Campus Police as well as teaching the hour and a half radKIDS class once a week since March 10.
“It’s amazing to watch their confidence grow each week,” she said.
A DVD distributed for radKIDS states that “education is the key” for children’s success. Often an abuser is someone they know and the program enables positive self-esteem as well as bravery and strength.
Principal Kaye Rhees supports the program and intended this pilot class to see what weight the school would put behind it.
“The kids get reinforcement of fire safety all the time, but this stranger stuff is not as embedded,” she said.
If the kids have practiced responses before, she said, the correct response will be in their minds and they’ll be able to handle the situation themselves.
radKIDS was pitched to the Parent Teacher’s Association (PTA) at Edith Bowen and unanimously PTA members accepted the program and were excited about the possibilities. Their children were used in the pilot program Rhees said, where they quickly became active in the program.
“Fifteen minutes into the first class they were active because of the way it’s taught,” said Sgt. Shane Sessions, USU Police officer.
Crockett added that after only a few weeks the kids wanted safety gear for simulations.
“It’s important for the kids to know that they can tell someone about what might have happened to them,” Shane Sessions, USU Police officer, said.
Crockett said the three main points of radKIDS are: 1) that no one has the right to hurt you, 2) that you don’t have the right to hurt anyone else unless in an attempt to escape aggression, and 3) it’s not your fault.
“It’s not about beating people up,” she added. “They’re taught to verbalize as well.
“A couple kids, one night, didn’t want to stop,” she said.
For most Edith Bowen kids they won’t have to. The administration plans on implementing radKIDS into its physical education curriculum this fall. Analisa Anderson, a faculty member at Edith Bowen, will receive training and certification this summer to teach radKIDS next school year.
“These kids will get an annual reminder,” Sessions said. “There will be long-term residual effects.”
Sessions hopes that other agencies will follow Edith Bowen’s example and implement the program around Cache Valley. It’s difficult for Campus Police to handle anymore because of cost and lack of manpower.
“It will hopefully spread to [on-campus] housing for children 5 to 11,” Crockett said.
The class will be a 12-hour program and continue to be taught through the USU Campus Police Department.
The final simulation for Edith Bowen students was Wednesday in their gymnasium. Each child was given three attempts to demonstrate the different tactics they had learned over the six-week program.
Rhees watched Wednesday as a kindergartner went through each demonstration aggressively. Only a few weeks ago the child had cried during a lesson where her fourth grade brother was approached by the instructor during a class.
“I’m convinced [radKIDS] is what kids need to have,” Rhees said.
Parents as well as students have learned from radKIDS and Rhees said she is excited for the program to be included in the curriculum at Edith Bowen.
“When you don’t have anything in your memory to default on in a bad situation, you default on nothing,” she said. “These kids will have built-in strategies and a muscle memory from [radKIDS].”
-ireneh@cc.usu.edu