Protecting your Tweens (9 – 12 years)

Female safety has been in the News a great deal recently – from the tragic murder of Sarah Everard to the latest distressing reports of school abuse and a ‘Rape culture’ as more than 8,000 allegations have now been made by school pupils on a website gathering testimonies of sexual violence and abuse.

Here is a guest blog by Andrew Privett from BeStreetWise around personal safety.

Streetwise is the only online resource enabling parents to upskill their children in personal safety.

As a parent, it is built into our DNA, to put a protective arm around our children; to keep them safe.
But our children strive for their independence.

There is no stronger time for independence than that of top Primary, and Year 7 at secondary school (9 to 12 years old.)

Our role as parents, is to prepare our children to be independent; to be good decision makers.

With respect of decision making there is no more important area than that of personal safety.

As parents we understand that we want to make our children confident in this area.

Confidence is only achieved if our children gain a degree of competence and understanding with respect to making

SAFE Choices.

Here are 5 simple personal safety tips that will make your child SAFER.

1. Know your child’s friendship groups. These friends will have a great influence on your child
   safety and well-being.
2. Get your children to memorise important telephone numbers. They cannot always rely on their mobile phones to access these numbers. Their phones may have been stolen, broken or out of power.
3. Adults should not be asking a child for help. If this happens, it should activate a red flag for your child to be aware.
4. Safety in numbers. Your child will be safer if they undertake activities with a friend. Walking to school, taking the dog out and jogging will be safer if not undertaken alone.
5. Keep valuables out of sight. This applies in particular to mobile phones that can be worth hundreds of pounds.

We must never forget that we are role models for our children. They are more likely to follow our
actions than our words. With this in mind, we need to be mindful of the choices that we make with
respect to our personal safety.

For example, we may need to re-think the way that we use our mobile phone when we’re out and about.

For FREE access to a personal safety resource visit: www.bestreetwise.co.uk or follow be.Streetwise
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