Back-to-School Safety, Part 2: When the Decision Is Yours

By Jeremy Robbins, CEO of Krav Maga Maryland

Last year, I wrote about some of the fundamentals of back-to-school safety: awareness, boundaries, knowing your environment, trusting your instincts, and having a plan before you need one. Those things still matter. They always will.

But as students get older, something changes. They start driving. They get jobs. They go more places on their own. Some leave home for college. Parents naturally have less control over the environments their children are walking into every day.

At some point, the decision belongs to the student. Can they recognize that something is changing? Can they make a good decision without waiting for someone else to make it first? And if the situation requires action, are they prepared to act?

For students reading this, those questions are worth asking yourself. For parents, they’re worth talking about before they’re ever put to the test.

Recognize When Something Changes

Last year, I wrote about trusting your gut when something feels wrong. This year, I want to take that a step further. When something feels wrong, ask yourself a simple question: What changed?

Most dangerous situations don’t begin with an announcement that something bad is about to happen. Something changes first. A person becomes more aggressive. Someone who seemed harmless begins ignoring boundaries. A friend starts behaving differently. A party gets out of control. Someone keeps showing up where they shouldn’t. A normal conversation suddenly feels confrontational.

Sometimes your instincts pick up on those changes before you’ve figured out exactly what’s bothering you. Pay attention to that. Who entered the environment? Who left? Did someone’s behavior change? Are you being isolated? Is someone trying to control where you go or who you talk to?

Awareness isn’t about constantly looking for danger. It’s about recognizing when normal starts becoming abnormal.

Give Yourself Permission to Leave

This is one of the most important things I want young people to understand: you are allowed to leave.

You don’t need everyone’s approval. You don’t need absolute proof that something bad is going to happen, and you don’t need to stay somewhere simply because everyone else wants to stay. If something feels wrong, leave.

Young people are taught to be polite, respectful, cooperative, and considerate. Those are good qualities. But there are moments when personal safety has to outrank social comfort. I’d rather see a student leave a situation that turns out to be completely harmless than stay somewhere dangerous because they were worried about looking rude or dramatic.

Parents can make that decision easier by establishing something ahead of time: If you need help, call. There can be a conversation about the decisions that led up to it later. The immediate safety problem comes first.

Think About the First Decision, Not Just the Worst-Case Scenario

When people talk about personal safety, the conversation often jumps straight to the dramatic ending: an assault, a fight, an active threat, or a serious emergency.

But here’s the part that sometimes gets missed. The fight, assault, or emergency may be the end of the story. There could have been five decisions before it that changed where the situation was headed.

Getting into a car with someone who shouldn’t be driving. Leaving your group and going somewhere alone. Ignoring the second or third boundary violation. Walking through an isolated area because it’s faster. Staying at a party after the environment has clearly changed.

Sometimes the best self-defense decision happens ten minutes before you ever need self-defense.

That’s why I want students thinking beyond, “Could I defend myself if something happened?” Ask another question: “Could I recognize this early enough that I never have to find out?”

Physical skills matter. They’re an important part of what I teach. But good personal protection starts long before anything becomes physical.

You Won’t Always Have Perfect Information

One thing I try to teach is that you probably won’t have all the information you want. Is that person actually following me? Is this argument about to become physical? Am I overreacting? Should I leave?

You may not know, and that’s okay. You don’t need proof that something bad is going to happen before making a reasonable decision to protect yourself.

Create distance. Change locations. Move toward other people. Call someone. Get security involved. Leave.

If you were wrong, great. Maybe you lost five minutes or had an awkward conversation. If you were right, those five minutes may have mattered.

Part of being prepared is getting comfortable making reasonable decisions before you have every answer.

Be the Friend Who Acts

Personal safety isn’t always about protecting yourself. Students are also going to encounter situations where a friend, classmate, or even a stranger may need someone else to make a decision.

Maybe a friend has had too much to drink. Someone is pressuring them. They disappeared from the group. An argument is getting more aggressive. Everyone sees that something isn’t right, but nobody is quite sure whether they should get involved.

Taking action doesn’t automatically mean physically confronting someone. It could mean getting your friend out of the room, calling their parents, getting security, finding another adult, refusing to let someone get into a car, or calling 911 when the situation warrants it.

Sometimes the most important thing you can do is simply be the first person willing to make a decision. Action can be contagious. When one person takes action, other people often follow. That first voice or first movement can break the hesitation of everyone else who was waiting to see what somebody would do.

You may never know what you prevented simply because you were willing to be the first person to say, “We’re leaving.”

Parents, Give Them Room to Make Decisions

As students become more independent, the safety conversation has to change with them. A high school senior doesn’t need the same level of supervision as a younger child. A college student may be living hundreds of miles away.

The goal can’t be to control every environment they’re going to enter. The goal is to prepare them to navigate those environments themselves, and that still requires communication.

Families can establish simple expectations. Let someone know where you’re going. Keep your phone charged. Have another way home. Don’t leave a friend behind. Know who you can call when something goes wrong. Some families establish a word or phrase a student can text when they need help getting out of a situation without having to explain everything in the moment.

Most importantly, make it easy for them to ask for help. If a student believes asking for help will immediately become a lecture about how they got into the situation, they may hesitate to make the call. There will be time to discuss choices later. Solve the immediate problem first.

Awareness Is the First Layer, Not the Last

I have said for years that most people are looking for a victim, not a fight. There are two words in that sentence that matter: most people.

Not everyone.

Awareness, confidence, boundaries, and good decision-making can help prevent a tremendous number of problems. Sometimes recognizing someone’s intentions early, creating distance, or carrying yourself differently is enough to change the direction of an interaction. But not always. Some people expect resistance. Some may even welcome it.

This is where the gap between basic awareness and real preparedness shows up. If avoidance fails, if someone ignores your boundaries, and if there is no safe way out, you need the ability to protect yourself.

You have to be prepared to give them more than they bargained for.

That doesn’t mean looking for confrontation. Avoiding unnecessary danger is always the better option. But sometimes the decision to become physical won’t be yours. If that moment comes, you need more than good intentions.

Final Word

Last year, my message to students was simple: you don’t need to be paranoid. You need to be aware, prepared, and in control of your space. I still believe that.

But as students become more independent, there’s another piece that becomes increasingly important. They have to be prepared to make decisions for themselves.

Parents can’t eliminate every risk their children will encounter. What they can do is help prepare them with the judgment, skills, confidence, and resources to navigate those situations when they’re on their own.

For the students reading this, personal safety isn’t something that can be completely outsourced to your parents, your school, campus security, or the police. Those resources matter. Use them. Ask for help when you need it. But there may be a moment when the first decision belongs to you.

Recognize what’s changing. Trust yourself. Make the decision. Act.

Sometimes that means leaving. Sometimes it means helping a friend. Sometimes it means calling someone better equipped to handle the situation. And if the situation requires more from you, be prepared to meet it.

That’s what preparedness is really about.