Last week while talking with my friend’s kid and to keep her busy I was asking simple questions like how many planets are there? Which is the bigger planet? Who is PM and so on. She was answering almost all the questions and I asked whom to contact in case of an emergency at home/outside? She was silent and then I asked the same question in a different way “what is the number to contact police station?” she was silent again and answered innocently “I don’t know”. Now one thing you should understand here, she remembered her both parent’s mobile number and other details so why she couldn’t answer what is the emergency number to contact police. Obviously, she was never taught and when I said you just need to dial “112” or “100”, she was like “that’s it? Only 112 ?” I said “Yes.”. She was happy it’s very easy to remember and also that she learned something new.
This gave me push to write this article about the importance of teaching kids the very basic and important survival information. Kids are innocent and prone to believe everyone. If we don’t prepare them for the emergency situations and also one thing we should understand is parents will not be around the kids always. So, they should have basic information like whom to contact during an emergency, what to do if lost, basic first aid techniques and so on. This will prepare them not only to face the situations and also they may help someone.
Every parent should teach basic emergency\survival tips to kids and depending on the age of the kid what basic information they need to be aware of and what information they can grasp/remember should be decided by the parents.
The very basic and important details kids should be taught:
· Names of both the parents. If they can remember big numbers then contact numbers of both parents.
· Address of the place they live in. At least the society/local area name or landmark near to their home.
· If they are going to school, location\Address of the school they study in.
· Working location of the parents like the company name.
· Any trustable local guardian name/information. This should be taught to kids only if you think the local guardian is 100% trustable.
Now the very basic and important emergency contact details:
· From March 2016 a single emergency number “112” has been introduced in India for all kinds of emergencies like police, fire and ambulance.
· Dial “100” for police.
· Dial “101” for the fire engine.
· Dial “1098” for child abuse.
· Dial “181” for women helpline.
Now the general survival tips you can teach your child to follow in emergencies:
· Never go to someone if they say your mom/dad is calling you until they see you. Register deeply in their mind not to go to anyone if they say mom/dad are calling you.
· Ask them and train them on route to reach home. Like initially keep asking your kid while taking to the regular shopping mall/ grocery store/ market the route to reach. After telling them important landmarks or signboards they should remember while reaching back to the home you can test them to give the directions to reach back while you are driving the vehicle. By doing this they will get familiar with the surroundings and locality.
· When they are alone at home and if some unknown person knocks the door. Train them as per your familiarity with neighbors and kids awareness. Ideally, the best way is not to open the door when they are alone at home.
· If lost first option would be to shout out parent name instead of shouting mom/dad. If no use of shouting names better they run to the nearby safe place like friends\ family friends living nearby, security guard/traffic police nearby, police station and so on based on your locality.
· Basic self-defense techniques like when to run, when to shout and so on (another article on this).
Let me know if any other basic and important survival\emergency skills that should be taught to kids in the comment section below.
Thanks VV!!
