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Just saw your child get hit by another kid? Parenting coach shares the perfect way to handle it.

How to turn a well known parenting nightmare into a valuable teaching moment.

Photo credit: Canva, @mommyandmishti/Instagram

An image of two young children in a fight.

It’s an unsavory scenario many parents have found themselves in: you’re watching your child play with other kiddos, when suddenly, out of nowhere, a fist starts flying…and your little one is on the receiving end.

Every parenting instinct in us might beckon that we immediately rush to our child’s rescue, and give that other kid the what for. Similarly, many parents might be inclined to instill a “hit back” mentality into their kiddos, in an effort to teach them to stand up for themselves.

But what if there’s a better way? According to certified parenting coach Anuradha Gupta, there most certainly is.

self defense for kids, kids fighting, teaching non violence, bullies, parenting, parenting coach, toddlers, kids hitting Is it possible to teach kids non-violence without causing them to be weak? Photo credit: Canva

In an Instagram post, Gupta shared four simple steps parents can take to turn those universally “awkward, hard-to-navigate moments” into opportunities to model “what calm strength looks like.” That way, the next time a boundary is crossed, kids know exactly what to do.

Here’s how:

Step 1: Gupta says to go to your own child, not the child who did the hitting, or their parent. Because immediately, kids need to know they’re safe. Gupta added that parents should make eye contact while saying something along the lines of “that wasn’t okay. I saw what happened. I’m right here.”

Step 2: this is when parents can “hold a boundary” by calmly telling the other child, “we don’t hit. That hurts.” It’s important to stay calm and not “scold," Gupta writes, because you are modeling how to respond calmly rather than emotional react.

Step 3: since most young children (toddlers and preschoolers) won’t inherently know what to say in these situations, Gupta writes that parents can “give them the words.” Things like “Don’t hit me” or “That hurt. Stop.” She added that it’s totally fine if your child isn’t up for repeating it immediately. What is vital is that you’re “planting seeds.”

Step 4: Practice setting these boundaries at home, where it is safe and feathers are no longer ruffled. “You can even role play with toys or act it out with them,” Gupta writes. Some suggested prompts are “What could you say if someone hits you?” and “Show me your strong voice.” One important note is to keep it fun and light here as you “build muscle memory for real moments.”

Gupta’s post was unsurprisingly met with a few parents who insisted on the “teach kids to hit back” method, the general consensus being that it better deters any future bullying. However, research findings aren’t so cut and dry. Some studies suggest it may indeed prevent further bullying, while others indicate that those who hit back are more likely to be victims again months later.

self defense for kids, kids fighting, teaching non violence, bullies, parenting, parenting coach, toddlers, kids hitting In a perfect world, bullies would no longer exist. But here we are. Photo credit: Canva

And perhaps more importantly, as many other parents in the comments section noted, this strategy of "fight fire with fire” doesn’t allow for much nuance—the fact that not every kid hits on purpose with ill intent, or will necessarily do it again, etc.—nor does it teach kids how to deescalate situations to avoid more violence. Arguably it comes down to what type of confidence you want to teach your kid.

All in all, hitting back does have its place, but this is some food for thought on what else is possible. Parenting is after all, a balancing act between teaching kids how to deal with the world as it is, and how it could be.

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How one self-defense class changed this woman's life forever

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Shanda Lynn Poitra was born and raised on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in Belcourt, North Dakota. She lived there until she was 24 years old when she left for college at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks.

"Unfortunately," she says, "I took my bad relationship with me. At the time, I didn't realize it was so bad, much less, abusive. Seeing and hearing about abusive relationships while growing up gave me the mentality that it was just a normal way of life."

Those college years away from home were difficult for a lot of reasons. She had three small children — two in diapers, one in elementary school — as well as a full-time University class schedule and a part-time job as a housekeeper.

"I wore many masks back then and clothing that would cover the bruises," she remembers. "Despite the darkness that I was living in, I was a great student; I knew that no matter what, I HAD to succeed. I knew there was more to my future than what I was living, so I kept working hard."

While searching for an elective class during this time, she came across a one-credit, 20-hour IMPACT self-defense class that could be done over a weekend. That single credit changed her life forever. It helped give her the confidence to leave her abusive relationship and inspired her to bring IMPACT classes to other Native women in her community.

I walked into class on a Friday thinking that I would simply learn how to handle a person trying to rob me, and I walked out on a Sunday evening with a voice so powerful that I could handle the most passive attacks to my being, along with physical attacks."

It didn't take long for her to notice the difference the class was making in her life.

"I was setting boundaries and people were either respecting them or not, but I was able to acknowledge who was worth keeping in my life and who wasn't," she says.

Following the class, she also joined a roller derby league where she met many other powerful women who inspired her — and during that summer, she found the courage to leave her abuser.

"As afraid as I was, I finally had the courage to report the abuse to legal authorities, and I had the support of friends and family who provided comfort for my children and I during this time," she says.

A lot of change happened at once. As a newly single mom, she ended up leaving med school and transferring to a tech school to learn a trade. And because she knew what her abuser was capable of, she took a lot of precautions to keep herself and her family safe.

"I worked and studied hard while my children were in daycare and school, spent the evenings cooking & cleaning, and studied again once the children were in bed. After two years of classes, months of clinical rotations, and becoming alumni at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN, I graduated as a Surgical Technologist and began working full-time," she remembers.

"It took a couple of years for my nerves to fully relax, but they finally did. It was so amazing to me how empowering it was to advocate for myself, I never stopped."

She moved back to the reservation in 2015 to work for the health service and to be around family again.

"Within my first week of being home, I noticed so much violence that I once thought was normal behavior," she says. "One morning, I got a phone call notifying me that my childhood friend was beaten and left for dead by her children's father; she was flown out to the nearest ICU and taken in for surgery for a hematoma in her skull."

"I knew something had to be done about this."

Domestic abuse is a big problem on reservations like Shanda's. More than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native women and men have experienced violence in their lifetime, and more than one in three experienced violence in the past year.

She spoke with several community members about the violence she was seeing, but she found they were quick to blame the victim. That's when it occurred to her: "What if I started a self-defense class for Native women?" Shanda says. So she called up her former instructor, found a group of instructors, and attended another class with her new team. And from there they founded their own chapter.

"IMPACT is being used all over the world, yet has never been available to Indigenous communities until now," she says. "Currently, our team consists of four core members; two suit instructors and two female lead instructors, all Indigenous members of our Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewas. All members are active in empowering our community in many ways."

"During the closing circles in our workshops, we all get to see the strength and transformation these women worked so hard for. We get to see them take their power back from those who hurt them."

And that is why Shanda is being named one of Tory Burch's "Empowered Women" this year. The $5000 donation will be made to IMPACT to help them bring IMPACT to more indigenous communities across the country and further their mission to help Native women recognize and protect themselves from physical violence.

"Empowering women should be as common as knowing how to perform CPR," Shanda says.

"Truth is, I know what it feels like to be on both sides of empowerment. I know the fear, pain, and humiliation that comes with domestic violence, sexual assault, trauma, and PTSD and I recognize it in my students," she continues.

"I also know what it feels like to step out of that proverbial cage. To be able to breathe freely. To speak freely. To walk the earth in a good and healthy way. I wish this freedom and empowerment for every person on earth."

To learn more about Tory Burch and Upworthy's Empowered Women program visit https://www.toryburch.com/empoweredwomen/. Nominate an inspiring woman in your community today!

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11-yr-old wiped blue slime on her attempted kidnapper's arm, helping police identify him

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While kidnappings by complete strangers in broad daylight are extremely rare, they can and do happen. If a child ever finds themselves in that situation, it's important for them to know what to do.

A security camera captured a scary kidnapping attempt in Florida that has people praising the 11-year-old girl who fought off her attacker and even left a clue that helped police identify him.

Video footage shared by the Escambia County Sherriff's office shows the girl sitting alone at her bus stop at around 7:00 am when a white car turned at the median, then returned a minute later. A man exits the vehicle, runs up to the girl, and grabs her, attempting to carry her back to the car. Sherriff Chip Simmons told reporters that the man was carrying a knife. The girl put up a fight and the man stumbled, then ran back to his car and drove away as the girl ran in the opposite direction.

The girl was playing with blue slime when the man approached her, and she wiped some of it on his arm in the struggle. When police arrested the suspect, who has been identified as 30-year-old Jared Paul Stanga, they saw the slime still smeared on his arm.

Simmons told reporters at a news conference that Stanga has an "extensive" criminal history that includes sexual offenses against children. Stanga has now been charged with the attempted kidnapping of a child under 13 and aggravated assault and battery.

"I cannot help to think that this could have ended very differently," Simmons said. "Had this 11-year-old victim not thought to fight and to fight and to just never give up, then this could have ended terribly. Why else do you think that this man stopped, stopped his van and tried to pick her up and take her into that van? It doesn't take a genius to figure out what his intentions were, but they were not good."

Simmons also told reporters that Stanga had approached the girl about two weeks ago at the bus stop and "made her feel uncomfortable." She told school officials and her parents about the incident, and her mother started accompanying her to the bus stop. Tuesday was the first day her mother had not been with her at the bus stop since that incident.

Simmons called the girl his hero for fighting to get away. She ended up with some scratches—and obviously experienced some trauma—but otherwise walked away uninjured.

"My message is that she did not give up," he said. "She did the right thing, and she fought and she fought."

Parents don't want to imagine anything like this happening to their child and may not want to scare them by telling them it could happen, but it's also important to prepare kids for all possibilities. Some children might freeze in fear or confusion in a potential abduction situation, but experts recommend kids fight back if someone actually physically grabs a child and tries to take them someplace.

"Kicking and screaming, opening the door, shouting, 'Who are you? I don't know who you are. You're hurting me. Stop it.' To try to call attention to the situation they're in," Marylene Cloitre of the New York University Child Study Center told ABC News. There are even formal programs in some places that teach kids what to do in various situations and have them practice using their voice and putting up a struggle, such as this one in the Chicago suburbs.

Training teaches kids to yell, run and fight back to escape kidnapperswww.youtube.com

There is no audio on the security footage in Tuesday's attempt, but it's clear the 11-year-old was not going to go quietly. Her instinct to fight back paid off, and thankfully she is home safe now. Hopefully, the justice system will now do what is necessary to protect her and other kids from the would-be kidnapper.

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People share helpful tips for keeping kids safe after U.K. abduction attempt caught on tape

Photo by David Clarke on Unsplash

Most of us like to pretend we live in a world where kidnappings only happen in the movies, but a video of an attempted abduction and alleged sexual assault of a school girl in the U.K. reminds us that it can and does happen in real life. The woman who thwarted the attempt has been praised for noticing something amiss and having the courage to confront the would-be kidnapper. Though abductions by strangers is rare, attacks and assaults do happen, and it's important that people know some ways to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe.

A Reddit thread discussing the U.K. incident contains helpful tips for doing just that. There are some standard self-defense preparations, such as carrying pepper spray or taking self-defense classes. But there are other less obvious things you can do to lessen the chances of abduction or attack.

One tip is to have a password for anyone who is sent to pick up your kids. Kids should know never to go with a stranger, but if there were ever a situation where someone they don't know or don't know well told them they needed to go with them because there was an emergency, kids need to be prepared for how to handle it.

"Create a password with your kids. Tell them that if someone comes to pick them up or tries to make them accompany them, this person must know the 'password.' If they don't, don't go with them. Change the password every time one has been used.

Example: growing up, we had a password: 'Pinocchio.' My siblings and I always got home from school about 40 minutes earlier than my parents did from work and so, we were home alone for this amount of time.

It was almost summer so for the 40 minutes, we played in the backyard of our house. Our neighbour, an elderly man who was always so nice to us and we had known for him years now, told my younger sister that my mom had called and asked if he could 'feed us a snack' as she was running late. He was trying to get her to come inside and help him grab some sandwiches. She asked him the password and he was confused. She kept persisting and he eventually said something along the lines of, 'oh yeah, your mom told me it but I can't remember. I'm so old!' But my sister still refused.

Eventually he gave up and my mom came home on time. We told her what had happened and she marched over there basically asking him 'wtf.' He said my sister got mixed up, he was simply asking us if we wanted a snack—never admitting to saying she had apparently called him and leaving out the fact that he was trying no to get her inside.

About 6 months later, he was arrested for possession of child pornography, including old photos of his own kids when they were young and some shots of other neighbourhood kids that appeared to have been taken from a window.

We truly think this password system saved my sister from being another victim of his."

It's important to trust our intuition and teach our children to do the same. If something doesn't feel right, there's a chance something isn't right, and we should honor that gut feeling. Teach kids to talk to a trusted adult if something feels off, and to leave situations in which they feel uncomfortable.

Along similar lines, having a code phrase for kids to use when they call or text you from a friend's or relative's house can help them get out of uncomfortable situations where they might not have the power to just leave. Another Reddit user shared a helpful tip for sleepovers:

"When your child is at a sleepover, give them a special phrase. One that they can say over the phone or through text that will alert you to come pick them up immediately, no questions asked. Ours is something silly like 'How's grandma's dog?' I'll reply something along the lines of 'not good. I'm on my way.' Then I call the parent hosting the sleepover, let him/her know that there's a situation with my family and I need my daughter to gather her things so I can pick her up. I usually wait to make the call until about ten minutes before I get there to avoid her awkwardly sitting around having to be grilled by the parents. My daughter has proof on her phone that she didn't call to go home (even though she did) and she avoids having to explain she wants to leave. And she isn't required to tell me why she wanted to come home. I will definitely ask her and offer comfort, but I don't force her to talk about it until she is ready."

Another parent said they did something similar.

"We used the password situation the other way too—it was a way for my daughter to call us from say a party, date or whatever that she wanted to leave but couldn't say out loud. This has gotten easier with texting but there are still times it helps.

Our code word was muffin bc it was a word that could be easily used either way. She called us from a sleep over that she didn't want to be at anymore and said she'd like muffins for breakfast. I immediately called the mom of the girl hosting and said we had a family emergency so I needed to pick her up. Worked like a charm. Turns out the girls 16 year old brother was being skeevy and offering the girls booze and weed, and asking "how far they had gone" ... the girls were 11 and 12."

One Reddit user shared a story of what a young relative did when she suspected a car was following her:

"My aunt's daughter was just in her car driving to her mom's house... a few days ago. She was getting off main roads and into developments and felt like this car was following her. She called her mom, who told her to start making weird turns and not come home. She did... the guy followed. Her mom called the cops and they were all there waiting when she pulled up. They couldn't arrest the man, he claimed he was looking at the leaves changing.

He was just arrested for attempting to abduct another woman at knifepoint. Two good samaritans saved her and held him down.

Trust your gut."

A couple of people added tips for physically fending off an attacker, even if you don't have specific self-defense training:

"Another good tip is to have them actually physically practice what to do if someone snatches them...dead weight, back on the ground, kick like hell, scream stranger! Dr. Phil had a guy on who described the technique as chiwawa [sic] crazy—flip out and cause a scene. And actually physically practice to help them not freeze in the moment," wrote one user.

"Also this!" added another. "My dad, now an ex-cop, made us practice about once a month. It's seems a bit much but honestly, I became pretty confident in my skills and was even able to remember one of those moves years later when I was 23 and someone tried to snatch my purse in a mall parking lot!"

KidsHealth.org offers other child-specific tips for keeping your kids safe in public, and Brown University offers a helpful list of ways for anyone to protect themselves from potential danger.

Though we all hope we'll never been faced with a situation like the one we saw in the U.K., it's good to be prepared for anything and always better to be safe than sorry.

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