Games, The Safety Builders Of Mental Focus

September 30, 2007

We mention all the time that real child safety, online or offline safety, begins with mental focus, what we call the Powers of Focus.

The Powers Of Focus for your child is their ability to take information in and process it in a meaningful way. This means they can, at their age, analyze it so they can understand it.

The importance of being able to do this for a child is CRUCIAL in their safety. If children can take information, even at an age as young as four or five years old, and have the ability to understand and analyze it, they will be able to keep themselves safe in unsafe situations.

Mental focus also has other benefits, things we call “Secondary Benefits.” It also has great benefits for them as a person and for YOU Mom and Dad and your FAMILY. Everyone benefits!

First, it gives your child a better understanding of the people around them, their environment and their place in the world. This translates into higher self esteem. It DIRECTLY translates into an awareness of their immediate environment which leads to better perceptions of potentially dangerous situations. A child who perceives danger as it begins to unfold can get away from that situation before it fully develops. They can avoid being caught in it.

They will also be able to share their knowledge with others. This is important to understand becuase it means with you or other family members, too. When they do this your child actually TAKES OWNERSHIP of what they see and perceive. It empowers them and gives them confidence. Knowledge is power. You’ll also notice your child’s ability to make good choices for themselves increases with your guidance.

This is EXACTLY what you want them to do in order to be able to keep themselves safe. You give your child the ability to make the RIGHT choices for themselves.

You will be able to interact and guide your child without them feeling they are threatened by what they say or think or feel. Your child will feel comfortable and confident in coming to you with whatever is on their mind or concerns them. This includes threats to their personal safety.

So, HOW do you put this in place? How do you teach your child the Powers Of Focus? We are believers in kids learning by means they do best: Playing Games. We teach simple, fun games for you play with your child at home a few times a week, for 5 minutes at a time.

But did you know you can also build on this? You can build very good focus abilities into your child’s skill arsenal with some additional “games.”

We like the Grocery Store Game as a challenging mental focus building exercise. When you head shopping with your child, ask them to pick out things like:

-how many yellow vegetables they can spot
-how many grandma’s are shopping
-what color is the checkout clerk’s hair
-how many carts are in front of you at the checkout counter

Once your child begins to master this game, start to play it UNANNOUNCED. That’s right! The more your child’s focus abilities increase the more you can hone them with instant games unannounced and played on the spot.

You’ll even find yourself having fun, too, with your child as you play focus games. You can play advanced games at the gas station, car wash, airport or road trip. Anywhere! Your child’s increased focus abilities in perceiving their surroundings and immediate environment, no matter how new, just may allow you as a parent will worry just a little less about your child.

Will you ever not worry about them? Probably not. But with good Powers Of Focus, you can be a little less stressed knowing your child can keep themselves safer and comfortable coming to you with any perceived threats in order for you to help them.

Preston Jones and Joyce Jackson are child safety experts in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA. Keeping Kids Safe^TM is a comprehensive personal safety course covering the full gamut of the things kids need to know today to be safe in their environment. Their entire APPROACH to child safety is UNIQUE.Some of the ideas they use you have heard. Some of the techniques they have you have seen. What they do is put it all together in a very effective and unique way. One, they teach kids to keep themselves safe. Two, they teach parents to reinforce their safety techniques at home by making families better with safer kids.

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