Welcome to #TweenTalks, a franchise by Grazia’s parenting community, The Juggle (@TheJuggleUK on Instagram) where we speak to experts about tackling touchy subject with your tween-age kids. This week, Matthew Collins, founder of Samurai Kickboxing and author of 11 Life Lessons: Empower Your Child to be Safe and Independent, explains how to build resilience in your child by talking to them about physical aggression and confrontation.
The other day, a parent asked me how they should talk to their child about the potential risks of aggression from others, without causing unnecessary anxiety. My response? We can’t shield our children from every danger. Doing so doesn't give them a realistic view of the world and could leave them unprepared for the inevitable challenges they will face. However, we can tailor their exposure to threats, taking into account their age, development, and lifestyle.
If you haven’t yet spoken to your child about aggression in particular, a good place to start is by gauging their current level of understanding. You might ask if they have noticed any children at school who get angry and lash out, or if anyone is overly physical or domineering. From there, ask what they would do if faced with that kind of behaviour. Their answers will reveal their confidence in handling these situations and show whether their reactions are appropriate or realistic.
This conversation can help you assess how much support your child needs in understanding not only the risk of physical harm by others but also how to avoid it, minimise its impact, and - if necessary - escape from it. Physical harm from others, while often minor, is likely at some point. An essential skill to develop in your child is therefore resilience. It will help them recover quickly from such incidents and enable them to overcome many other types of harm too. It will also equip them with the grit they’ll need to overcome bigger challenges in the future and become stronger as a result.
I used an analogy to explain this to the parent: imagine throwing a child into deep water without any swimming skills - it would be traumatising. But if you expose them to water where they can stand, over time they will gain the confidence to swim. With the right support, they will eventually tackle deep water. It’s the same with physical confrontation. Throwing a child into a high-stakes situation without preparation will damage their confidence, but if you gradually expose them to smaller, controlled levels of physical competition, they will learn to handle increasing levels of aggression in an age-appropriate way.
We also talked about assessing danger using three factors: Source, Likelihood, and Impact. This helped the parent understand the origin of a threat, how likely it is to occur, and what action is needed to reduce its impact. Just understanding this process helped them understand the appropriate action their child needed to take to avoid the specific harm they had in mind. Of course, we can’t protect our children from every challenge, but by giving them knowledge and practical skills, we equip them to navigate tricky situations, and some will even thrive when faced with adversity!
The good news? Parents don’t have to rush out and enrol their child in boxing or martial arts to build these skills. Although such disciplines, when taught by a professional, can help develop resilience and self-confidence, it’s not for every child and nor does it need to be.
Instead, children can learn simple techniques to reduce their risk of being involved in physical altercations. For example, they can be taught how to recognise potential threats and how to avoid them. Body language and an assertive voice are also powerful tools. If your child appears confident, they’re less likely to be seen as an easy target.
If avoidance fails, basic self-protection skills are vital. There are many self-protection experts across the UK just make sure the instructor’s methods are appropriate for your child’s age. Ideally, they should have experience in managing real-life aggression, such as former police officers or security professionals, rather than relying solely on martial arts training.
While martial arts offer many benefits, short-term courses that are solely founded on rigid techniques are less suited to the unpredictable nature of real-life situations especially those your child might face.
Alternatively, you can teach these skills yourself. No one knows your child better than you, so you’re perfectly placed to adapt techniques to their needs. A fantastic resource for this is my book 11 Life Lessons: Empower Your Child to be Safe and Independent, which is available on Amazon now.
However, you choose to equip your child with these vital skills, when you discuss the subject of aggression the key is to provide a solution - don’t just highlight the danger. Talking about the risks of physical harm without showing them how to manage the situation can cause unnecessary worry. If your child knows how to handle a threat, they will feel confident and capable and that is a major win for both you and your child.
About the expert: Matthew Collins
Matthew Collins is a national award-winning teacher, running The Samurai Fitness Group which has taught over ten-thousand children vital life skills. He is a fourth-degree black belt Kickboxer as well as a
first-degree black belt in ITF Tae Kwon-do and Judo and his debut book Eleven Life Lessons is out now. The book explores lessons he has gained from life experiences including being mugged as a teenager,
overcoming cancer, the loss of two best friends, bleeding on the brain, being robbed at gunpoint in Nepal, his mother's death from breast cancer and his travel exploits including staying with cannibals in
Borneo and travelling overland from Italy to Vladivostok in Russia. These lessons provide real life examples to equip parents with a tool kit they can use to help their children navigate any issues they face.