Disbelief, Fear..... Freeze

[RoyGBiv]

I'm still mulling over an incident from this weekend. Not gun related, no injuries to anyone, but a lesson in mindset for sure.
Thought it would be worth sharing. Would like to hear your comments about how you can train others to REACT instead of freeze.

We were at a pool party at a neighbors house on Friday night (yes, it's already swim temps in TX ). The kids were all swimming, the adults chatting and eating ~25 feet away. I hear a loud voice that I recognize as one of mine, kid #1. One kid yelling at another to STOP doing something. I look up to see another kid (the "other kid") with an arm around my kid #2's neck. Kid #2 is under the water and kid #1 is yelling STOP. I immediately intervened. Turns out that the other kid and my kid #2 were splashing around (equally, from all accounts) and the other kid got mad and went on the offensive. This other kid has known behavior issues and my kids are aware (not aware enough, apparently) that they need to handle interactions with this other kid differently.

We had a long talk over the weekend about taking action in urgent situations when words are failing, and about the difference between using physical force to intervene in a dangerous situation when words fail vs. "fighting".

What disturbed me (still) is this.....

My kid #1, and several other kids (by the time I intervened it was clear the situation was serious and other kids had begun yelling) did nothing more than yell STOP. How do you teach kids (or adults) that in some situations words will never be adequate, and action, immediate action is necessary?

My kid #2, after some discussion, said that they didn't want to fight back because they didn't want to hurt anyone. It seemed to me that it was more "not knowing what to do, so doing nothing". How do you teach/train kids/adults to properly assess a potentially life threatening situation and REACT (fight, flee...), not freeze.?

Are these innate skills or can they be trained?
How do you begin to train children for these skills?
How do you train adults? [Out of 8 adults only two were aware of the situation before the danger had ended, myself and one other]

Makes me shiver to think of what you can lose for the lack of ability to react properly and immediately to a dangerous situation.

[derekb]

I'm not a parent, but once kids hit school-age, any lesson about how physical action is sometimes needed is going to be 180 degrees out of phase with what they are told at school, isn't it?

In this age of zero-tolerance this and expulsions that, overcoming that stigma is a challenge worth considering, I guess.

[MEH]

I'm not a parent, but once kids hit school-age, any lesson about how physical action is sometimes needed is going to be 180 degrees out of phase with what they are told at school, isn't it?

In this age of zero-tolerance this and expulsions that, overcoming that stigma is a challenge worth considering, I guess.

It's a problem alright. One way I have dealt with this is to become known to school administrators and teachers. Volunteering helps (I do chess club in elementary school.) Then, I tell my kids that if they are defending a friend or it's a serious situation I will back them to the hilt no matter what the school does. Being known has kept my kids from being suspended a couple of times where if I wasn't known to the school they would have received auto suspensions.

As far as non school situations especially around water, I've taught the kids that horse play has it's limits. And keep and eye on them. Responding to situations is a hard thing to teach, but the OP has a great teaching moment with his situation. Use it.

[JHC]

Edit to: I totally missed the point.

[Zhurdan]

Also not a parent, but as much as it can be avoided... avoid the situation all together. Explain to them that some people (kid with known issues) should be kept at arms (or greater) length and why there may be a potential problem. Especially near water, as it only takes a second to become a tragic situation.

My niece is 16 and absolutely beautiful (does modelling) and it garners her some very unnerving attention at times. So much so that her parents are concerned about her. My "unwelcome" suggestion was to avoid the triggers (progressively more provocative modelling). That isn't going to happen so I bought her a pass for a self defense class at the local rec center. That also didn't go over very well. As much as it bothers me, some people (parents) cannot or will not listen even in the face of their own fears. (not saying you in this situation) This also applies to the other kids parents... they have responsibilities too that cannot be shrugged off just because the kids are playing in the pool while they chit chat. If their child has known issues, they need to monitor that more than what you portrayed in your story.

At a young age, getting physical probably isn't the best solution as kids tend to not forget that stuff if they get put in their place. Being the other kid has known issues, it'd be likely that he'd seek retribution at such time when adults weren't around. Not that your kids shouldn't be taught to defend themselves but they most likely spend an inordinate amount of time away from you and near said "other kid" (school) and that just opens the door to more issues.

[will_1400]

The whole "Zero Tolerence" thing is pure *CENSORED* in my opinion. Especially when in my old high school even if you didn't do anything except stand there take the beating you were still arrested and going downtown.

As far as recognizing when violence is necessessary, that's something that can be taught, but it isn't easy in many respects; espeically with so many people being almost completely oblivious to how the world is. One consistant hang up I've come across is the student "not wanting to hurt someone" and sometimes they just don't get that the other person (not saying "guy" because one of the most vicious beatings I've witnessed was done by a woman) doesn't care about hurting others and likely will only understand their mistake if they're dealt with violently.

That's just based on my experience so YMMV.

[RoyGBiv]

I didn't intend for this to be a discussion focused on children. Of course I'd like to continue building a "mindset for action" [Assess, Analyze, Adjust, Implement, PDCA, or whatever acronym you know it by] for my kids, but the real problem is that so many adults seem incapable of responding constructively to danger... My pool example was just a reminder (to myself) that these behaviors exist in young people too... and that training kids not to freeze at danger is as important as training adults. I didn't intend for this to become a discussion about kids and use of force issues...

Let me attempt to refocus the discussion a bit...

What surprises me constantly about adult behavior is the seemingly vast majority of adults that freeze with disbelief when faced with crisis. It's as if the event that's unfolding does not "register" for the danger that it is, or that adults become so focused on "realizing" the danger that they do not act to avoid or remedy the danger in an expeditious manner.... You hear the precursors to it it all the time... "Do you REALLY need to lock the car doors just because we're in THIS neighborhood?", "I can't believe that boy did that, he's such a nice young man".... and the aftermath... "I never saw that coming", "I didn't know what to do (so I did nothing"), or the City of Washington DC's advice to rape victims to "submit to avoid antagonizing your attacker".

I remember the first time I realized that my view of the world was "different". 4th of July, many years ago. I was maybe 17 or 18. A street party. Lots of people around, from small kids to adults. We're shooting off fireworks (mostly directed up) and somebody yells "FIRE". About 15 feet away is a van, with a fire burning brightly under the gas tank, flames licking up and around the tank. We found out later that the van's tank was leaking badly and some fireworks set off a gasoline fire.

At the first yell of FIRE, everyone froze. Maybe 3 seconds later everyone scattered. I remember yelling for a fire extinguisher. Everyone is either running, staring frozen at the flames or had disappeared. I keep yelling for an extinguisher. Eventually one of the adults "woke up" (I remember watching the expression on their face change from "look at the pretty flames" to "oh shit, I have an extinguisher in the house I better go get it") ran into their house and came back with an extinguisher. I ran over and put the fire out. Only one other person thought enough to take action (unfortunately he was emptying the contents of a cooler (melted ice) on the fire, causing the fire to spread). Why, from a group of 50 or more people, were two 18 year old's the only ones to take constructive action?

Why didn't anyone else think to get an extinguisher? What makes people "disbelieve" or be unable to quickly process danger into action (I suppose running away was a good action for many folks to take).? How do you train for not only situation awareness but for the DO part when the SHTF?

ETA:
The discussion I had with my kids was mostly about reinforcing that they have "permission" to use "appropriate physical force" when faced with physical danger and to reinforce that when there is an ongoing physical threat it is both necessary and proper to use more than words to solve the problem. But I'm really more focused on how to train an adult to PDCA when faced with physical jeopardy.

[JHC]

Thanks Roy. I totally missed your point! I thought it WAS principally about kids!

Recently we had a safety/security meeting in this urban high rise. The security guy (former mil) briefed on a variety of emergencies. His active shooter brief included stories from the Atlanta "day trader" that went postal and killed some folks. The briefer was apparently a first responder to this event.
Anyway, he said the shooter entered an office and shot the receptionist. Then walked into a room full of cubicles. Survivors said they knew the sound was a gunshot. But what did they do?

They all stood up to look. And as the briefer's story went, the shooter shot EIGHT people as they stood and stared in shocked disbelief. Un-freakin' believable. Probably stems from no training, no tools, and no fighting mindset. Some folks seem easy to teach. They get it quickly. Some never seem to. I don't know why.

[voodoo_man]

I do not have any kids (not for the next 7 months anyway), so I cannot speak to how to raise a child or teach a child. I have seen this type of psychological roadblock, a failure to act, and to a greater extent cognitive dissonance in adults.

Grossman called it the "universal human phobia" in his books, its definitely true of interpersonal contact especially violence.

I can only speak from my personal experiences of being in prolonged fist fights inside homes or on the streets and having my backup stand there, looking at me without moving or radioing for help. Later telling me they just "froze," it happens.

There are those who can act, there are those who cannot. Unless they are tested in real world situations (after being trained on proper response, dynamically and with great discipline) they will not know, nor will others know of their abilities.

With adults there are social factors, like stigma, which may induce action. (I say may because who knows) The adult has to be in a specific situation in order to have those social pressures active (police officer, officer in military, FF/EMS, etc).

Children/kids do not have that type of social understanding.

I have seen this occur first hand with people I work with, with victims/witnesses/complainants and even myself when I first got into law enforcement, witnessing things I have never seen before (fatal accidents, multiple shooting victims, dead babies, etc) but I had expectations of it occurring, trained myself ahead of time for it, and came quickly out of it, doing what was required of me.

I know I hit a lot of complex points without going in depth, just giving my personal observations/opinions.

[David Armstrong]

At the risk of channeling my inner professor, such a reaction is normal and to be expected. When confronted with a new experience, particularly a stresssful experience, the body has a tendency to freeze in place until it has a chance to process the information and develop a solution. There are all sorts of interesting (to me) psychological and anthropological reasons for that, but recognize it as normal. The solution is to teach the body that this is not a new situation. That is the essence of training, it allows us to move this reaction further down the road. So we train, and train, and train. Interestingly, visualization seems to work about as well as actual training. So the more one thinks about these things, the more one works them out in your head, the less likey one is to freeze up.