How to get a daughter interested in her personal safety

Anyone out there who might be able to give me pointers on how to get my 16 year old daughter a bit more interested in her personal safety. I have taught her a few things about guns, but unless I promise to take her shopping after taking her to the range, it doesn't happen. Ammunition I can afford, but she has expensive tastes in clothes. :gah:
She knows some of the basics and thinks that is enough.

And it is not just guns. She is totally unprepared to deal with any emergency and shows no interest in learning at all. I told her that she can not go to college unless she has taken at least two self defense classes. She agreed, but reluctantly. The first is scheduled for April and the other TBD.

One idea: Get her to read the news.
Or find her a bunch of stories about young girls being assaulted, near college campus, etc.... within the last year and email them to her. Maybe she'll think hard about it.

My girlfriend, although half a dozen years older than your daughter, is in about the same boat. (I'm in my 20's too, no pedophilia here.) I try hard to get her to have more situational awareness constantly, but she's not into it.
She gets annoyed with me being "paranoid" all the time (i.e., choosing corner booths in restaurants, crossing the street to avoid a group of shady characters, not using ATMs or getting gas late at night, etc....). She's not anti-gun, but she doesn't have the defensive mindset by any means. I share your frustration.
She won't carry a gun, period. She says she doesn't want to "live in fear", and she doesn't want to hear my argument about it. I did get her a taser and a can of OC, which she keeps in her purse and has probably never practiced using.
I try to convince her that all those stories on the news are real, and it could happen to her.... most younger people seem to have this idea in their head that "it wont happen to me".

It may take a big reality check to get them interested. You, as a parent, have a lot more leverage than I do as a boyfriend though. She's been dropping hints at marriage... Maybe I should make it a condition :rofl:

Sorry for the rant, but I know how it feels to WANT someone to have more SA, and you can't get through to them.

Peace,
Pete Zaria.

Get her to visit or volunteer an abused women shelter or Victim support organization. If that does not open here eyes, nothing will.

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Originally Posted by exactlymypoint

... my 16 year old daughter ... is totally unprepared to deal with any emergency and shows no interest in learning at all.

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Some choose to not learn until it strikes them on the forehead. Unprepared, unrealistic, condition "white" sheep have a tough time, these days, coming out the far end of the meat grinder intact. Sadly, she might well not see the light until an attack forcibly alters her false perceptions of reality.

I suppose the newspaper's a place to start. There are women's self-defense courses, the good ones helping such reticent folks to open their eyes before it's too late.

Do you have any friends of the family who have experienced a serious situation and survived? People whose opinion she might respect and actually listen to?

As suggested, the abused women's shelter might be a place for a sort of family field trip.

Me, I'm all for shock value of the stark examples. In this situation, she seems to not really hear what you're saying. But then, she's 16 and knows everything already.

You're concerned out of love. You're anxious about her ability to survive, literally. You see a train wreck coming, where she only sees a light in the distance. Whatever you can do to help her see that you're helping her see ... that's what you need to do. Sounds like it may well be the greatest gift you could give her.

exactlymypoint, I'm having that same problem as well.....although my daughters are 13 and 14. My girls see next to NUTHIN' while out and about. I like to quiz them about what someone was wearing, what so-n-so was doing, what color the car that cut me off was, etc. Thier mother and I have gotten 'almost' graphic with "what-if's" and "what has happened". My girls can only focus on that for a second or two until they get a 'text message' and then off to the races to see who gets to 'Atomic Condition White' first.
All I can do is stay at 'em.

Perhaps the self-defence class might open her eyes a little.........

She's 16! In her mind, she will live forever, and the world is a wonderful place to live amongst unicorns and fairies. Dad, in her mind you have very few brain cells (because your children have stolen them from you), and are clueless. Sometimes it takes the reality of life to slap them across the face before they wake up to the scariness of the evil doers. That goes for many adults of all ages as well.

Make a big deal out of it when something bad occurs to a female on the news or in the newspaper.

Teaching her to shoot is GREAT! But, in the real world, that isn't going to do anything to help her until she turns 21 (if that is your state's age limit for handguns), and can possess one....if she will.

Just keep being a good Dad and teach her situational awareness.

Are far getting her excited about shooting. Use some reactive targets & not just paper. Use things like old milk jugs, soda cans or even popper style targets. It's a lot more gratifying to see a target move than to just punch holes in paper. The more she does well the more she may enjoy doing it, rather than it being 'a chore dad wants me to do....'.

If she progresses well, maybe even take her to somewhere like Thunder Ranch....it would make a great vacation! With training comes the development of other skills such as situational awareness.

As to her safety, I wouldn't pound her over the head with horror stories like we see nearly everyday of some young woman disappearing. I would make her aware of some of them.

I'd also use the 'soon to be driving' teen approach. That self preservation comes with being allowed to drive alone! Let her know she has to be able to defend herself & change a tire! She has to pay attention to her surroundings.

Another thing you can do is find a good self defense class & offer to pay for it for her & A FRIEND. That way you're helping to protect someone else's daughter & keeping your's interested at the same time.

It worked for my daughter. She started hunting with me when she was in single digits & is now an MP in the US Army. (She loves automatic weapons!....which I can't afford.....)

Most 16 year-olds just want to have fun and don't want to think about anything bad happening. She's probably going to have to start out with a can of mace and learn how to carry and deploy that, and not leave it bobbing around at the bottom of her purse to expire there.

I was too young to legally carry a gun when I started college, so I carried a knife instead. I carried a Benchmade AFCK at the time, and luckily the only thing I pulled it out on was a loose pitbull that circled me. But I did have, on several occasions, a carload of guys slow down and try to pick me up.

Sometimes it takes other women and their stories to get through to other women, because sometimes women can tune a man out when he gets too determined to look after her, because she ends up feeling silly like you're thinking she's dumb and helpless.

She could read limatune's story.

You can also tell her how some weirdo saw me in town one day, noted I was alone and had out-of-county plates, followed me, and flagged me over. He told me he noted I was out of town and wanted to know if we could go find a campground together. :scruntiny: Picturing some little creepy guy with a shovel and a bunch of black plastic garbage bags in his trunk should be enough to make most women squirm.

Make sure she knows how to change a flat tire and and other things that will prevent her from relying on a stranger who may not be a samaritan.

yea, there are SO many people out there like this.
my suggestions:
making her take self defense classes is a great idea. good for you.
in order to really get, something drastic has to happen. but we dont want this of course. i would say one of the best ways is to go out and find a female (such as myself, although i dont think i live anywhere near you) that understands the need for self defense. one that does because something actually happened to her would be the best.
as sad as it is, the most real treat for her is being snatched off the street and being raped and then probably killed, if not close. an abused womens shelter of something similar may be a good trip.
the most important thing here is that this realization of hers is NOT going to come from you. someone else has to open her eyes, because she has already shut her ears to what you are saying. someone else must do it.

All the advice you've been getting is great, but I'd caution you not to underestimate your daughter or think that nothings getting through.

It's true that she's only sixteen and boys are probably WAY higher on the priority list than self-defense is, but it's probably a good bet that she's not completely ignoring you though it may seem that she is.

I remember all too well what it was like to be sixteen. In fact, sixteen proceeded seventeen and seventeen proved to be the breaking/turning point of my entire life where self defense was concerned.

But let me tell you, even at sixteen I was seeing the world in a whole new light.

Teens are in a unique stage in their life. They are young enough to still be "kids" and not take things too seriously, but they are old enough to start venturing out into the world alone and seeing it for all its ugliness.

True that sometimes they forget to take what they are being told seriously ENOUGH until something bad happens, but there's nothing you can really do about that. You can't scare her into it, you can't beat her into it, you can't talk her into it and you certainly can't buy her into it either.

Self awareness and self preparedness and everything else that comes with self defense is a a road one must travel alone, unfortunately.

You are doing all that you can and it's great that she's agreed to go to the classes you mentioned and it's a good thing that you are able to get her involved as far as she already is.

Guns and gun training aren't really going to help her be prepared for the outside world so much at this point as she's too young to carry (though they could certainly help in home invasion type scenarios), so hand-to-hand defense and pepper spray may be in better order for her at this point.

You are doing everything you can and I encourage you to keep trying but most of the time these things need to be learned on their own.

Just be sure that what you are telling her is sound advice because whether you believe it or not she IS listening to you and if anything ever happens she's going to fall back on that advice and you want to make sure it's such that it can help her.

I was always told to stay in crowds and that public places were safe places.

I was seventeen, unarmed, in a crowded place when I learned the hard way that was not true.

What's worse is that while I was being dragged out of a public restaurant by my hair I wasn't acting. I wasn't acting because no one had warned me that this could happen. No one told me that there were those out there who could and would hurt me even in public. I was searchng my mind for anything that I had learned anywhere in my short life about what to do and was coming up blank. I was waiting for someone to step up and help me and it wasn't until I was alone, tied in the back of a van that I realized I'd made a big mistake and someone, somewhere dropped the ball in telling me that public places were safe.

Your daughter may act like she doesn't care and in truth, at the time, she may not care, but everything you are saying to her is being stored in her brain to be recalled when she needs it.

If you tell her to scream and bite and kick and panic and pound and eye-gouge and scratch and plummet anyone who touches her, you will probably be surprised at how much damage she could do to someone who tries to harm her.

No one told me what to do. I was told I was supposed to be a lady and ladies don't fight. Public places were safe. People are generally good and will help you in need.

So what did I do when I was attacked in public?

I acted like the perfect lady. I put up no resistance. I didn't even scream. I was led out of there head first and into the worst day of my life. Because that's what I was told.

It took me a couple more years to learn (mostly on my own) that a lady can also be a strong woman. And whereas a lady might not scream, a strong woman lets out a war cry that can be heard round the world. A lady might not fight but a strong woman beats the crap out of anyone who thinks she can be taken advantage of.

You're on the right track. I guarantee you're making more of an impression that you think you are.

But that's just Lima theory...:gah:

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Originally Posted by limatunes

Guns and gun training aren't really going to help her be prepared for the outside world so much at this point as she's too young to carry (though they could certainly help in home invasion type scenarios), so hand-to-hand defense and pepper spray may be in better order for her at this point.:

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I too have a young daughter...and totally agree with the hand-to-hand and pepper spray on a key chain, or an alarm on a key chain etc. I pointed out the hot spots...gassing the car, mall parking lots, check to to see if being followed, locking car doors etc. And a few what not to do's...like being submissive and being forced to leave in a car. A self defense class is great and highly recommend starting in that direction...it is amazing when she starts talking with her age group and the stories...

Rick

Lima thanks for that post , I do have a clue what it cost you to post it , and respect you LADY for sharing your experience . IMHO you are right that there is not an " answer " for us as parents , we can talk and talk , and show , and do range days ect... When it came down to it tho on my daughters 21st birthday i asked her what she wanted , and she replied " Dad i can't afford my ccw licence " Needless to say the rest is history , and so are perpetual renuals lol . It will never cost my girl a cent to carry a firearm ( as long as i am alive ) and her duty in return is to find " that cowboy " ( i can change dress code myself ) and be happy as she can .

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Originally Posted by limatunes

But that's just Lima theory...:gah:

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This is all good advice IMO.

My wife first became interested in personal security after picking up this book
from my bookshelf when she was bored one day.

All seems like good advice, although I'm not sure about the abused women's shelter...the women there have been through enough without being part of a 'field trip'. On the other hand, talking to a couselor at an abused women's shelter might be a great idea. Other information you could give her would be police response times for your area. That might wake her up to know that she actually will be on her own for at least a few minutes.

Ride-alongs, with EMS, Fire & PD are good too. My preference would be EMS, since you get to see "results," vs. "intervention."

FWIW, if you have kids in love with texting, you have bi-pedal cheeseburgers. Ours didn't have cells until they could sign their own contracts. Not everyone is willing to be so hardcore, but...