Counterpredators: Survival Response Conditioning and the Parent/Child Connection.

Bill Kortenbach

Description

Counterpredators is a modern solution to an ancient problem: Parents face the overwhelming responsibility of training their children to navigate the threat environment and safely molding them into powerful, self-aware, authentic adults. At the same time, many parents do not themselves possess the necessary skill setand when their children sense this, they begin to adopt questionable heroes and role models.In the natural world, animal parents train their young by repeatedly exposing them to hazard, while demonstrating efficient risk management, yet our society teaches us to do the exact opposite: Shelter and protect our children from whatever might harm them. As a result, many children are profoundly unprepared to deal with real threat. Since both animal and human young are equally vulnerable, it is easy to spot the weak link: The unprepared human parent.To solve this problem, parents need to assume a powerful new identity, something unique and elemental that rivets the attention and imagination of their children. They must become counterpredators: individuals who have the skill and the will to engage and overcome human threats. Counterpredators is the story of how to achieve this transition using cutting edge methodology. Survival Response Conditioning the re-activation of dormant, subconscious survival skills combined with high pressure, scenario based experiencesproduces rapid, permanent change and provides the launch pad for an unbreakable bond of love and respect between parents and children.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Assertiveness
• Social

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 13 octobre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456612092
• Langue: English

Extrait

COUNTERPREDATORS
 
SURVIVAL RESPONSE CONDITIONING
AND THE PARENT / CHILD CONNECTION
 
 
BILL KORTENBACH

“Fear is not the enemy.
Confusion is.”
• What if you were suddenly exposed to a life-threatening, predatory attack—just as you are, right now? Would you be a victim… or a survivor?
• Do you worry that your children are vulnerable and naive or are they actually capable of making decisive, powerful choices in the presence of danger?
• How much of your children's trust is based on believing in you as a mentor/hero?
• Do your children see you as someone with experience and power in the real world or are they growing apart from you and adopting questionable role models?
Nature designed fear to function as an asset, rather than a liability. Fear engages the primary mode of learning that determines the survival of animals in the wild, and it exists as a prerequisite, parallel system in the human subconscious. Triggered by sudden threat, this system is able to create new behavioral templates after one or two stressful encounters. It is fast, permanent and very efficient. Without it, no species can survive.
Unlike animals in the wild, many of us do not have these automatic behavioral templates because modern civilization gives us so few opportunities to develop them. The machinery is rusty, and the owner’s manual has been lost.
Welcome to the world of Survival Response Conditioning, the stunningly effective learning experience based on nature’s primal skill set: a crucial four-way link between the parent/child dynamic, intuition, positive modeling and hazard exposure. Original, compelling and provocative, COUNTERPREDATORS will forever change the way you view your relationship with human threat.
Drawn from 35 years of experience as a personal safety innovator, Bill Kortenbach, 7 th degree black-belt and radio talk show host presents this remarkable perspective for the first time to a general audience, focused on one objective:
Becoming counterpredators
and instilling this legacy in our children
 
Psychology/Parenting

 
DEDICATION
To my lionhearted children, Brandon Michael and Alana Marie—
my motivation throughout the adventure that became this book.

 
“The world breaks everyone
and afterward,
many are strong at the broken places.”
– Ernest Hemingway
What is a Counterpredator?
S ince this is a word that the reader may not commonly encounter and because I define it narrowly for the purpose of this book, a brief explanation will be helpful.
A counterpredator is an individual who has the will and the skill to confront and defeat a predator and who will engage an aggressor without hesitation when necessary. There are two types of counterpredators. Public counterpredators are usually professionals, like policemen, soldiers and bodyguards, whose job requires them to seek out aggressors and put them in check. They are in the public eye and pursue their professional objectives openly. Because of this, predators avoid public counterpredators whenever possible and it is usually easy for them to do so.
Private counterpredators may have less formal training then public counterpredators, but they are just as committed and have a formidable skill set. A private counterpredator is an aggressor’s worst nightmare, because it is hard to distinguish these individuals from potential victims until they are engaged, and then it is too late. A private counterpredator could be anyone: a parent, a martial artist, or even a street-smart civilian who learned his or her skill set in the school of hard knocks. Either way, they have superior motivation, courage and the will to retaliate when provoked. While they do not consider themselves to be heroes, they perform heroic acts, and will often intervene to rescue a stranger.
Counterpredators are society’s guard dogs, and no civilization can survive without their presence. As Richard Grenier said, “ People sleep peaceably in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” 1
In every culture, the part that private counterpredators play is an incredibly important role. The greater their numbers, the healthier, safer and more compassionate a society is. Therefore, the transition of vulnerable citizens into private counterpredators is the focus of this book.
Introduction
W hat you are about to read on the subject of child safety may shock you. It is written from a perspective that is the polar opposite of the way it is commonly addressed. This “counterculture” approach is necessary because the society we inhabit and the culture it has adopted is one of the leading causes of our vulnerability. Modern civilization is driven by human desire. We want instant gratification/deferred payment and to this end, we visualize ourselves obtaining more and achieving more. We want to experience the good things in life, and this is normal—as long as provision is made for life’s unpleasant surprises. The root of the problem is that the search for the good has crowded out the preparation for the bad. As a result, we become immune to threat because we become blind to its proximity .
I believe it is important to put this trend toward unnecessary vulnerability in check. Allow me to suggest another visualization exercise. Imagine your child has disappeared. The authorities have caught the perpetrator, and he has led them to her body. Imagine the agony, the grief… the guilt. Imagine reviewing the events leading up to the end of your life as the parent of this child and coming to the conclusion that it might have been prevented. What could you have done differently? How will you conduct yourself from this time forward with your surviving children, or others you may have in the future? Would you be willing to take action to arm yourself with a more effective skill set, one that gave you the advantage over a predator if he targeted you? Would you be willing to take the time to pass that skill set on to your children?
Bear in mind that this hypothetical scenario is real to parents all over the world. It could happen to you. The purpose of this book is to confront vulnerability. We must first become counterpredators ourselves, and then pass on this advantage to our children.
When it comes to the subject of child safety, society gives parents what I call porthole perspective. Our view of the subject is limited by our social mores, ideology and lack of exposure to the world of predator and prey. It is helped down that path by denial and complacency. Like a stowaway in the hold of a ship, we see only what is visible through the porthole. The real tragedy is, unlike the stowaway, many of us do not recognize the situation. We do not realize that our perspective is limited. We believe the view through the porthole frames the whole horizon.
In this analogy, the ship’s hold represents the prison of politically correct thinking. This auto-programming directs our focus away from the creative, critical thinking so necessary to independence and self-sufficiency. “Group Think” with regard to child safety is a deadly threat to our children. It is robbing them of the tools nature intended them to possess and it is responsible for vast numbers of adults becoming victims in waiting—meals ready to eat.
What we need most is to come up out of the hold and onto the deck. From there, we can climb through the rigging, into the crow’s nest and address reality from a 360 degree view. We need to stop surrendering control to others and begin steering our own ship. Before this can take place, it would be wise to acquire the knowledge that will allow us to become proficient navigators.
When we decide to take action to improve our children’s training, we attempt to find resources for them , when what we need to do is begin with ourselves. This reminds me of the pre-flight safety instructions flight attendants give passengers regarding deployment of emergency oxygen masks. In the event of crisis, they instruct us to fit ourselves first. After our oxygen supply is secured, we help our children with their own masks.
Instinctively, we sense that we are the weak link in our children’s safety. We surrender leadership in this field to the “experts,” because we believe it is the best and safest choice. We replace ourselves with someone we believe is a better mentor than we are. I strongly urge you to reconsider. Preparing your children to survive—and thrive—in a harsh, unforgiving environment begins with you. To that end we will be taking a different approach toward the goal of making your child a hard target: First and foremost, you must become one yourself.
You are the key to your child’s safety. How you view the world, what you think is possible, and the choices you make based on your knowledge and experience will vastly impact your children. For their sake, you must be willing to expose yourself to the widest range of ideas and experiences available because only then will you be equipped to choose the best and right path. I cannot over-emphasize the importance of a parent having first-hand knowledge of this subject.
I want to encourage your exploration of and familiarity with effective methods that you can trust, not because of the opinion of an expert, but because they have worked for you. Your child’s right to proficiency in the arena of self-preservation is crucial. You cannot in good conscience take a short-cut. You invested in this book because you want to ensure his or her safety. Grab your own oxygen mask first. Without the advantage of personalized knowledge, none of us have a point of reference in deciding what is real and effective. We cannot choose the best training for our children when we fail to see all of the options. That is porthole perspective.
We must discover for ourselves what the truth is, what works and what does not. We need to know what we can trust. We must question assumptions that even the experts rely on, because both society and the individu