Guard Up: Back-to-School Safety Tips Every K-12 Family Should Know

What Every K-12 Family Needs to Cover Before the First Bell

My Mother Walked Me to School

Growing up, my house was not far from the school. So I walked. But before I walked alone, my mother walked with me. Many times. Down the same path, side by side, teaching me the route the way she wanted me to know it. She told me not to talk to strangers. She told me not to approach strangers. She told me to stay on the path where the officers watched students going to and coming from school. That was the rule.

After a while, she let me walk on my own. Or at least, that is what I thought. Years later, when I was in my late teens, my mother told me the truth. Yolanda D. Henry had been walking behind me the whole time. Far enough back that I didn't see her. Close enough to see me. She had been watching me for a long time without me ever knowing.

Show Them. Then Watch From Afar.

That is the model. That is how you raise a child who walks confidently into the world. Show them the path. Walk it with them until they know it in their bones. Teach them the rules. Then let them go, but stay close enough to see. Close enough to intervene if something goes wrong. Far enough that they build the confidence of doing it themselves.

My mother did that for me. Every parent reading this column can do the same for their child.

Reevaluate Every Route. Every Schedule.

Every year at back-to-school time, I say this to my congregation, to my students, and to anyone who will hear me. Reevaluate the schedules and routes of every person in your household. Everyone. Where is your kid walking? What time? With who? Where is the bus stop? Who is the driver? What is the route home? What do they do if the plan changes?

If you cannot answer those questions right now, you don’t have a plan. You have a hope. And hope is not a self-defense strategy.

The Basics Every K-12 Family Needs Before Day One

Route. One route to school, one route home. Same one every day. No shortcuts through unfamiliar places. Path. Walk the path with your kid before day one. Show them the safe houses. Show them where the crossing guards stand. Show them where trouble tends to gather. Group. Kids should walk in groups when they can. A predator picks the child walking alone. Pickup rules. Only certain people can pick up your kid. That list should be short. It should be in writing at the school. If something goes wrong. Your kid needs to know two things. Where to go for help. And how to reach you when they get there.

Three Things Every Kid Must Have Memorized

Every child in your household needs three pieces of information memorized. Not saved in a phone. In their head. My mother drilled these three things into my head when I was a boy. She quizzed me until they came out automatically. I have done the same with my children.

1. Their home address. The full address. Number, street, town. If they can't tell a police officer or a store clerk where they live, they are stuck.
2. Mom or dad's full name. Not just Mommy. Not just Daddy. Your full name. So the adult helping them can find you.
3. Your cell phone number and emergency 911. Not saved in their phone. In their head. Because phones die. Phones get lost. Phones get taken. The number in the head is the one that never fails.

Drill these three until your kid can say them in their sleep. Then quiz them again next week. Then again the week after that.

The Day the Bus Driver Got It Wrong

Let me tell you a story about my son Christian. Christian is a high function autistic, smart and strong young man. He was on the bus coming home from school one afternoon, and the driver dropped him off at the wrong stop. Christian told the driver it wasn't his stop. The driver made him get off anyway. His phone was dead.

He wasn't where he was supposed to be. No one at home yet knew what had happened. By every measure of a bad situation, my son should have been stuck. But he did three things.

1. He remembered the route to my taekwondo school, which was closer to where he had been dropped off than our house was. He walked there.
2. He knew the business right next door too. From there he got to a phone.
3. And he had my cell phone number memorized in his head, not just saved in his dead phone. He called me.

Those three habits brought my son home.

That is what training looks like. That is what happens when you have walked the path with your child, watched them from afar, and drilled the basics into them until the basics come back to save them when the plan fails. My mother taught me. I taught Christian. The training held.

Reflection

If your kid's bus dropped them at the wrong stop today with a dead phone, would they know how to get home? If the answer is no, you have work to do this week.

Guard up!

For Speaking, Seminars, or Self-Defense Training Contact:

Grand Master Evan R. Henry

Founder, New Creation Taekwondo  •  Senior Pastor, Infinite Hope Global

Bachelor's Degree in Pastoral Leadership, Newburgh Theological Seminary

Follow @TheGrandMasterPastor on TikTok

NCT Business: (848) 217-2202

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