The importance of transmitting a culture of safety to our children

Do you remember the last time you told your child "don't run", "take care", "call me!" or "be careful that you will fall!", "do not go up", "do not touch", or you put your hands to your head and / or screamed when you found out that you had been in a "macro party" in a suburb?.

These are some of the situations that our children hear and that are repeated frequently, but Are these warnings really effective??

Unfortunately behind were teachings of the modern school whose pedagogy enhanced the curiosity, autonomy, and responsibility of children.

People of the last century who promoted new pedagogies such as Rosa Sensat, María Montessori, Célestine Freinet, Rudolf Steiner (Waldorf method) or Emmy Pickler, (Lóczy institute) or schools like Summerhill (pioneer of the "free schools" movements), have in common a paradigm focused on the integral development of minors and are examples that enhance self-esteem, autonomy, curiosity, responsibility, with the presence of the adult who offers them a quality affective relationship and leaves them freedom of movement so that they can explore the environment.

Today, places like Silicon Valley, which is home to the largest technology corporations and numerous Start-Ups, paradoxically they succeed with their Waldorf methodology schools, which opts for alternative systems, free of technology until the age of 13 and curiously a third of these children are descendants of technology giants.

In Spain we already have alternative education centers, especially for infant stages, although they are private. So the Francesco Tonucci pedagogical association, A benchmark of educational innovation is also committed to a paradigm shift in the education of children towards autonomy and the development of their potential and happiness. Wave Rosa Sensat Teachers Association those who defend a quality public school.

In addition to these models that take care of the comprehensive education of minors, parents need to learn skills that promote the comprehensive safety of their children. I am referring to the safety culture that goes beyond road safety and we can only transmit it if we ourselves are aware of its importance beforehand..

What is safety culture?

This concept was born in the 80s around the Chernobyl accident. It is the combination of values, attitudes, competencies and modes of behavior, both individual and group, that determine the commitment, model and competence of security management in the organization (ENAIRE white paper).

This definition can be adapted to any system capable of improving security, learning to recognize risks and threats and how to deal with them.

This approach little or almost nothing contemplated in the family and school environment, serves as a model to help the elderly teach them to take care of themselves, identifying risk situations, both external (environment / people) and internal (their physical and emotional state) and learning coping strategies.

All this will depend on our philosophy of life, our values ​​as people and our ethics and integrity. Therefore, it is necessary that we stop to think about what style of person we are and whether or not these values ​​favor us and the community. The more we are involved in improving society, the better education we will be providing. It is useless to "advise", if we do not adjust our facts to what we preach.

Therefore, the psychopedagogical guidelines and advice given by professionals do not help enough but this personal review and alignment with the couple is given, about the education model we want for our children.

We live so automatically that we forget to think about our life and that of the little ones. Consequently they can grow and learn many specialties but they can be clumsy to face their life and not be aware of themselves. A good education will undoubtedly contribute to this, but it is possible to go further to establish a preventive, non-restorative and palliative culture after accidents.

Due to many regulations, health surveillance, and other care that we have, if we do not take care of your safety we will not have optimized the management of your education.

What can parents do to educate our children in a culture of safety??

The responsibility is ours and I propose complementary objectives to the learning of academic knowledge, which have to do with their safety and autonomy, and these have to be adapted depending on the maturation stage and the rhythm of each child.

To promote an education oriented towards safety culture It is necessary to teach knowledge in this regard, to learn skills and competencies to be able to react, as well as to have physical capacities and sufficient psychological aptitudes to act in life with confidence.

Therefore we will start from what is necessary and sufficient to be modeling towards excellence, so that they learn to take care of themselves and to assume their responsibility and progressively delegate to them, as they advance in this learning.

One Friday at eight o'clock in the afternoon there was a knock on the door of my house, then located in a central Barcelona apartment. I was alone and they told me it was the secret police who came to check information about a person. I answered from the other side of the door and looked through the peephole. I was surprised to see only one person (usually they go in pairs) and I decided not to open. I later checked if the visit came from a police station in my neighborhood, the policeman turning out to be false.

I wondered then what would have happened if in my place a pre-adolescent minor had been found - like many who go from always being accompanied, to staying alone at home - and had opened the door.

Are our children prepared to take care of themselves?

Sometimes the danger can be at home, and we are so calm thinking that they have already arrived. This is a small example of the importance of the transmission of teachings oriented to their care, their autonomy and their safety. Premises such as gender equality and opportunities should be among our principles.

We will educate so that know, having information and situational awareness, which want take responsibility and may do because they have the optimal skills and abilities to do so.

KNOW + WANT + POWER

Parents' competencies:

• Be models of stability and security. First of all, try to be these models in order to develop situational awareness and awaken motivation for prevention. It is not to instill fear, but to anticipate what could be probable although not frequent.

• Encourage attitude, curious, respectful and questioning. For example, listening and validating the contributions without judging them, moderating the turn of the conversations.

• Communicate effectively on security issues. Establishing protocols in different situations. As a game for the little ones. At home there may also be emergency and risk situations.

• Enable continuous learning. Taking advantage of real life occasions. Teaching to evaluate the situation, make decisions and solve problems. Let's not forget that we are role models.

• Enhance perceptual-motor skills. To react quickly and accurately. Helping them with some activities like martial arts or other sports.

• Promote good self-esteem. No labels or comparisons. Recognizing his strengths, reinforcing only good performance, and allowing him to make mistakes, are some of the examples.

• Manage errors as part of learning, experience and training. Not tolerating defiant or anti-normative attitudes.

However, I leave you these points as a reflection so that we can begin to become aware of how far we are in implementing this culture of safety in our children. In the next post we will continue with this topic (2nd part).

"Any unnecessary help is an obstacle to development".

Maria Montessori  

References of interest:

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