What College-Bound Teens Need to Know about Personal Security
Live with certainty in an uncertain world. Sign up for the FREE LiveReady bi-monthly newsletter and get the insights and tools to be a protector.
The Most Dangerous Time in a Young Woman’s Life
Miriam was a 16-year-old high-schooler when she started training with me.
She and her family were very motivated to learn self-defense. Earlier that year, while attending college, Miriam’s older sister, Sarah, had been abducted at knife-point. Through some quick thinking, courageous action, and a little luck, Sarah escaped relatively unharmed.
Another story for another day perhaps.
A few years later when Miriam left for college I was proud of the confident and capable young woman she'd grown into. She’d overcome the fear her sister’s harrowing experience created in her, and she knew how to protect herself.
Early into her first semester, Miriam attended a house party with her roommate.
Miriam was aware of the dangers college parties might present and chose to remain sober. At some point, however, she realized she’d lost track of her roommate. Her roommate had been drinking and a sinking feeling in Miriam’s gut told her that something wasn’t right.
In fact, it felt downright wrong…
As Miriam went looking for her roommate, she followed some boisterous sounds coming from a bedroom, where she found a group of 4 boys laughing and carrying on. Two of the boys had Miriam’s inebriated roommate half naked on the bed, yanking the rest of her clothes off—despite her friend’s protests and attempts to resist. Without hesitation, Miriam grabbed the nearest boy holding her roommate down, ripped him off her, and yelled, Stop!
Most of the boys froze at the sudden intervention, but one reacted by shoving Miriam onto the bed.
Miriam rolled onto her back, responding with a few decisive bicycle kicks to his groin and face, and then jumped back to her feet ready to fight. By now, her roommate was able to get up as well and they both made a hasty exit as the remaining boys stood open-mouthed at what just happened.
As heroic as Miriam’s actions are, the situation her roommate found herself in is —unfortunately—common.
Some Alarming Statistics
According to a 2015 report by the National Sexual Violence Resource Centers, 1 in 5 women will be raped within their lifetimes.
And according to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), that number jumps to 1 in 4 for female college students. These numbers are disturbing, painting an objective fact that college, specifically freshman year, is often the most dangerous time in a woman’s life.
For many young women, college is often the first time they are exposed to real independence and parties. What makes this a dangerous situation is that on every college campus there are a cadre of experienced predators, adept at using persuasion, drugs, and alcohol to create opportunities to victimize young women.
Deny Opportunity
As Sun Tzu said some 2500 years ago in the Art of War: “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”
This is why, Rule #1 of all personal protection is to Deny Opportunity.
In the simplest sense “denying opportunity” means to avoid putting yourself into bad situations. But dating, parties, and social interaction are a big part of college life. So what denying opportunity means here is the ability to recognize danger—specifically if you are being targeted—so that you can adjust your attitude and behavior to avoid or escape potentially bad situations.
The process begins by recognizing and accepting this reality:
Dangerous people exist;
You may be targeted; and
Ultimately, YOU are responsible for your own personal protection.
Without the above mindset, you are a soft and inviting target … but once you accept these truths, it's easy to develop the baseline skill sets and mindset to ensure you can engage in all that life has to offer without compromising your safety (or your parents' peace of mind).
Let’s Start with Some Fundamentals
All predators, even those who use charm and persuasion to create opportunities fundamentally need an easy or “soft” target and the right situational factors to pull off an attack.
To become a “hard” target, and thereby safeguard yourself when socializing, I offer the following principles:
1/ Avoid drinking to intoxication
When you are drunk you simply cannot think or defend yourself properly. If you choose to drink, make sure you do it in a safe environment with people you trust.
2/ Guard your drink
Date rape drugs are a real and ever-present threat. Never accept a drink that you did not see being poured, and when possible, choose a bottle over a cup as it's harder to drop drugs into it. If you lose track of your drink, forget about it and get another.
3/ Drugs should be a non-starter
Marijuana (and other drugs) are more common and widely accepted in our society than ever before. But remember: marijuana found today is on average 30-50% more potent than that found 30 years ago, and illegal marijuana is frequently laced with other drugs such as heroin, or potentially lethal amplifiers such as fentanyl.
4/ Beware of privacy
Stay together with your friends and don’t let yourself become isolated in an environment of privacy with people you don’t trust. Avoid the 2nd floor of a frat house or a bedroom during a noisy party.
5/ Trust your intuition
If you think a situation or a person is potentially dangerous, trust your gut and get yourself out of there. Your RADAR is likely picking up on numerous non-verbal and verbal warning indicators that may be below your conscious awareness. You may not be able to logically identify the specific warning signs in the moment, but you're better off trusting your intuition.
6/ Beware of charm
Most people think of the word charm as an adjective, as in He’s so charming. I’d rather you think of charm as a verb, as in Why is he trying to charm me? This mental posturing defaults your RADAR to be more aware of attempts to manipulate you and break down your mental defenses. Understand that charm, and niceness are tactics. This does not mean that anyone you meet socially, that you find attractive, or who exhibits charming personality traits means you harm. But when charm is coupled with an initial intuition of unease, apprehension, or distrust, be careful and pay particular attention to attempts to maneuver you into privacy.
7/ Beware a refusal of NO
“No” is a complete sentence. It does not require any qualification or explanation. And if you say No in any context, such as No, I don’t want to go upstairs with you or No I don’t want a drink and the person you are interacting with persists in pressuring you—especially when the tactics he/she uses are charming—what they are telling you is they aren’t interested in what YOU WANT, only what THEY WANT.
8/ Train (before you need it)
Good judgment is born of experience, but experience is born of bad judgment. Experience is the fulcrum from which we can successfully navigate difficult situations, but experience can truly only be developed in one of two ways: the hard way or the easy way. The hard way is through the trials and tribulations of life. By making decisions, dealing with the consequences, and hopefully surviving to learn from your mistakes. The easy way is through training.
As Greek warrior poet Archilochus said 2500 years ago:
“We Don’t Rise to the Occasion, We Fall to the Level of our Training.”
No matter what the crisis, you’re going to be on your own. And unequivocally, the best time to decide how to respond is NOT during the crisis … it is beforehand.
I implore you. ENROLL YOUR DAUGHTER(S) IN PERSONAL SECURITY TRAINING BEFORE COLLEGE!
Preparing your daughter for college and life in the real world can be a daunting task. With a high-school-aged daughter myself, I’m well aware. But with the stakes so high isn’t it worth the effort?
The goal is not to instill fear and paranoia. The goal is to enable a more experienced, mature approach to life and its inherent risks. Living itself is a risky proposition, and certainly nothing worth doing in life is absent risk.
The best way to live life to the fullest is to:
Take full responsibility for your own protection and well-being;
Understand what situational factors can be controlled and when to never relinquish control of them; and
Gain the confidence born of knowing that you can respond no matter what happens.
That is what it means to Live Ready.
There’s a lot more to learn about dealing with bad guys and navigating an uncertain world. The best place to start is with my book Live Ready: A Guide to Protecting Yourself in an Uncertain World.
~~~
Want to go deeper into these concepts? Join me on Sunday, April 14th, for my new training seminar: CollegeSafe: Personal Security for College-Bound Teens.