How to teach zero tolerance to your kids

It seems counterintuitive to teach our children self-defense only to be told in school, if they defend themselves at any level, well, it's going to work against them. That they may even get kicked out of school or put on some longterm suspension.

A little background first.

The zero tolerance policy became a pretty common thing in the mid-1990s, as school administrations' adherence to certain laws were put in place back in 1994 about firearms. This is where it all began. Then it spilled over into drugs and violence.

Some school administrations have gone so far to say that if there is in-school violence, any type of fight or a situation of bullying, then both parties are going to be removed and dismissed. That’s absolute zero tolerance.

Some of us can be pretty critical about that policy. Meanwhile, others can be very accepting to it and saying, "Look, I want zero violence in our school regardless." Either way it comes down to a simple fact that if we’re teaching children personal protection, then we have to also make sure that they know how to articulate certain situations to school administrators, teachers or adults.

If they feel threatened at any time, or if they're speaking on behalf of a friend who may not have the courage to come forward with what's going on, possibly your child sees a situation happening to someone ... Or they're just a bystander and they feel motivated and they feel sort of that responsibility to say,

"Hey, look, I need to help this kid out," well, good for them.

Here are the steps to coach our children to navigate the zero tolerance policy.

1. If your child feels threatened at any time or they feel as though the situation could escalate to a point where it's going to go hands-on, they need to go to a school administrator and say these words. (Now, dads, stay with me here. I want you to say this after me because this is how you are going to coach your child or your children with us.)
2. "This is what happened,” they need to express exactly what happened.
3. Followed by, ”I am scared for my safety and I'm asking you to help me, and if you can't, please take me to who can."  This not only puts the onus on that school administrator, that teacher or that adult, but it puts an accountability trail, This child has taken the steps to notify and to put on call the administration that they are scared, that they have been threatened, that it has gotten to this point and it is now the administration's responsibility to take that next step.

Now if something were to happen to your child and they protected their self, now they're able to sort of bypass that zero tolerance, because they did the responsible thing by going to the administration, speaking to the administration and saying, "I'm scared for my safety. I'm asking you to help me, and if you can't help me, please take me to who can."

As a martial arts teacher, one of the things that I have experienced over 20 years are dads coming in to my school with their child and saying, "You know, I want my child to start martial arts.”

And I'm always going to ask them, "Oh, okay. What's the reason? Why do you want them to start martial arts?"

The answer is oftentimes going to be, "Well, this happened at school." Or, "I'm scared that this is going to happen."

Martial arts, while it's going to help that child develop a specific skillset for when a situation goes to the point of crisis, I don't want the child to feel as though one day they're going to have to defend their self physically.

Do I want a child to feel that right now at that point in their life, especially if they're in a vulnerable situation as the parent may have expressed?

If it's a girl and she's dealing with social exclusion, if it's a boy and he's dealing with some conditions within peer groups, they're at a vulnerable point. Giving them the impression at that point that, "Hey, look, you're going to have to defend yourself. There's going to be a fight. It's going to get to that, and I want to make sure that you're capable of protecting yourself."

It's all well intended, but I’d argue that we need to have deeper conversations with our children, encourage and empower them to overcome those vulnerable situations and not make them feel fear or paranoia."Oh my God, I'm going to have to fight one day?”

We want to be the leaders, role models and trainers for our children. We must communicate at a level that they're comfortable with versus communicating to them at a level that we're comfortable at; vicariously wanting to fight that kid that's messing with my kid… through my kid.

This is important; I have worked with young people in these situations and they're like, "No, I'm not scared of that guy. I just don't really want to fight. I don't want this situation to happen, but I'm not scared for my safety."

Let your child know that you support their bravery for coming forward and letting you know about the situation. Encourage them to let you make the call, at which time you can then use this exact method.

I hope you enjoyed this quick tip. Get to understand your local policies at your school administration, get to know it, get to learn about how it has been enacted in your community.

Ask those hard questions of your school administration and learn how they respond to these situations.

I look forward to hearing your comments down below. Have you had this situation happen to your children?

Do you have any questions about this? I look forward to having that discussion with you.