Teen years are among the most dangerous. We can prepare our teens to face them with awareness and a realistic mindset. Gary Quesenberry literally wrote the book on teaching teens situational awareness. He shares some of his knowledge with us today.
Child Injuries Are Overwhelmingly Preventable
Episode 504: Parenting Through Addiction with Ed Kressy
It's likely that having a child suffering from a serious addiction is one of the few things that can hurt and scare parents nearly as much as losing a child altogether. An addicted child feels like a different person, and assaults the core of how we feel about having done our core job.
But addiction is a complex situation, one our society is only just now beginning to look at from a compassionate, realistic, science-driven perspective. It's hard to know what to do to help prevent a child from going down that dark road, and even harder to know what to do if they're already on it.
Ed Kressy struggled for years with addiction, and psychotic breaks caused by that addiction (or maybe it was vice versa). Since he quit drugs, he has worked tirelessly with individuals, organizations, and law enforcement to help others find the tools they need to enter recovery. He is probably the only man on earth to have both been arrested by the FBI, and to have been given an award by them.
In today's episode, we talk about his journey, and the most important things he learned from it that we as parents, and our adult children, can use to help avoid or survive this potentially tragic life risk.
Episode 403: LGBTQ+ Issues in Family Safety with Myriam Dumont
I am not a member of the LGBTQ+ community, but when I listen to my friends who are, they all tell me the same thing. They, and their children, face different safety challenges from people who aren't members of that community.
Myriam Dumont is an educator, librarian, and community organizer who works tirelessly to help LGBTQ+ families be safer in their communities, and communities become safer for LGBTQ+ families. Join us for a powerful conversation about what matters, what doesn't, and how we can take steps - as LGBTQ+ people or their allies - to make the world safer for everybody.
Episode 710: Using Games to Teach Safety
We can use games to teach our kids important skills for safety and general life, and to model success strategies we want them to see. Mike Brodeur has spent his life in the board game and tabletop game industry, and took the time to talk about some of his life experiences and the things he's seen about the value of games for children. WARNING: this interview got more explicit than most. You've been warned.
Episode 708: how to Be Your Own Bodyguard
Staying safe in an increasingly intimidating world requires skills once reserved for specialists.
The good news is, we can learn most of those skills by paying attention to professionals willing to share them. Nick Hughes is one of those professionals, and he shares with us today the most important things you can learn and remember about keeping yourself and your family safe.
Episode 707: How to Travel Safely with Young Children
raveling with young children is daunting, but to enriching to miss! We worry that other places are dangerous, and about how children make everything more chaotic, exhausting, and troublesome. But going abroad with little ones can make even passport control fun. Marquita Wright, the Traveling Twin Mama, shares her experiences, tips, and tricks about how to make this more fun and much safer.
Episode 706: What You Don't Know About Self-Defense (Can Kill You)
What do violence professionals know that amateurs and martial artists don't?
Way too much. Training at the average dojo is at such a remove from what happens in real physical conflict, and many martial arts teachers don't fully realize that.
Joe Saunders is a violence professional and martial arts maven, who has built a career around educating people about the realities of violence. In our conversation, we talk about the topic from multiple angles.
Episode 705: Defusing Emotions in Conflict
How do you stay calm enough to calm others in tense situations? The bad news is this can be very hard, especially for parents. Nobody knows how to push our buttons quite like our kids. The good news is this is a skill we can learn and become excellent at.
Brandon Dutton is a martial artist and security specialist who applies these skills daily with people under immense stress. He took the time to share what he's learned as a professional and a parent.
Episode 704: How to Stay Safe as We Get Older with Dave McNeill
Aging affects all parent protectors, in two different ways.
First, we become increasingly responsible for our parents' safety, which is an adjustment many of us find tricky to manage.
Second, as we get older, we find our capacity for physical protection gets lower. This is also hard to admit, and even harder to handle.
Dave McNeill, a martial artist and protector of many decades experience, shares his insights into both of these.