EMERGENCY!
What to do in risky situations
by Dr. Brad Smart and Dr. Kate Smart Mursau
TWEENS & TEENS News November
2007
What would you do in these emergency
situations?
•You hear an intruder in your house.
•You see a chair on fire in front of the
fireplace.
•You are in a mall parking lot and a stranger
approaches.
•A friend picks you up in her car, and
she’s drunk.
Parents, teachers and friends might not be
giving you the best advice on what to do in
an emergency situation. My co-author of this
article is my Dad, a psychologist, and I’m
a clinical psychotherapist who works with
families. Our advice is unusual because we
don’t believe in giving much advice.
Does that sound strange?
When I was in my teens, the only people who
didn’t give me a lot of advice were
my parents. They raised me to think for myself.
They always said, “You’ll be a
lot happier and more successful if you get
better and better at figuring out things on
your own, than if we constantly tell you what
to do and what to think.” Sometimes
it was a little frustrating because I knew
my parents had an answer. Yet, I eventually
learned the greatest love my parents could
ever show was to help me become a can-do kid,
able to figure things out on my own.
All tweens and teens experience emergencies.
My parents encouraged me to consider different
ways of preventing and escaping them. I became
more of a can-do adolescent because my parents
taught me how to think, not what to think.
As a clinical psychotherapist, I always warmly
listen to kids as they talk about their crises—
their emotional emergencies. Some have said,
“Dr. Kate, I’m totally stressed
out; what should I do?” In most cases,
they have gotten a lot of advice from friends,
parents, teachers and themselves (we all talk
to ourselves). My approach to helping kids
follows the reasoning my parents used with
me— determining the best course of action
for oneself.
My tween and teen clients are initially surprised,
and hope I have some miracle cure to ease
their emotional emergencies. Within about
ten minutes, however, they sense my confidence
that they can learn to solve their personal
problems. More importantly, they sense they
can get better and better at resolving conflicts.
My Dad and I believe the best approach concerning
crises prevention and adolescents is for kids
to contemplate how to handle emergencies before
they arise. It’s smart to practice handling
all sorts of emergencies whenever time permits.
That way, if prevention doesn’t work,
tweens and teens can handle emergencies with
confidence and competence.
Think of your favorite movies. Aren’t
the best parts when kids figure things out
on their own? The movies would be dull if
the main characters, such as Nemo, Harry Potter
and the gang in The Lord of the Rings, all
solved problems by taking advice from adults.
Who are kids you admire most? Often the most
respected and admired kids are the ones who
are particularly good at figuring things out
in all aspects of their life— relationships,
school, money and health.
Here’s an idea: When you are hanging
out with friends and family members, play
a game of Pretend Emergency. Take turns thinking
up and declaring an emergency situation. Then,
everyone say what might be the best way to
handle the scenario. Some ideas may be silly,
but that’s alright. It’s still
fun to think of what would work and what would
not suffice. At the end of each game, your
friends and family members will be a little
safer and have a little more confidence that
they can figure things out on their own.
My family played a slightly different version
of the game. A couple of times a year, my
brother, Mom, Dad and I would say, “Let’s
play Pretend Emergency.” Then one of
us would say what the supposed emergency was,
and we’d all react as though it were
real. If the emergency was a “fire,”
we’d pretend to call 911, ensure that
all family members, including pets, were accounted
for and run outside. Someone would use a stopwatch
to see how long it took for all family members
to get outside the house.
Once, after we all had went to bed, my brother
crept into our bedrooms and whispered “Pretend
Emergency— there’s a burglar downstairs!”
Within seconds, we all scrambled. A month
earlier, we had talked about a plan for the
burglar scenario: Everyone should hide in
the attic and call 911 to report the emergency.
We acted out the burglar plan perfectly.
There are lots of different fire situations.
Once I called out “Pretend Emergency—
the fire in the fireplace spit sparks that
set this chair on fire!” We all pretended
the chair was ablaze. Someone called out to
grab a fire extinguisher to put out the fire,
but there wasn’t an extinguisher nearby.
Oops! As the closest fire extinguisher was
upstairs, we bought one the next day for the
downstairs part of the house.
That’s the point. We won’t always
prevent emergencies. However, most emergencies
can be prevented, or at least handled intelligently,
when you train yourself to be a can-do kid.
Dr. Brad Smart is a bestselling author
and consulting psychologist who lives in the
Chicago area. Kate Smart Mursau is a clinical
psychotherapist who also lives in the Chicago
area. In December 2006, she became a Mom.
The Smarts invite readers to e-mail questions
to Brad at brad.smart@topgrading.com or Kate
at katemursau@earthlink.com. You can encourage
your parents to trust you more by directing
them to www.asksmartparenting.com to order
Smart Parenting: How to Raise Happy, Can-Do
Kids (CDK Press).
