We all hope that our children will never find themselves in a dangerous or scary situation, but the reality is that bad things can happen. That’s why it’s important to have a safety plan in place, just in case.
Teaching your child what to do in an emergency can be difficult, especially for kids with unique learning needs. Using behavioral skills training can make it easier.
Keep reading to learn more about how to use this approach to teach your child about safety plans.
What is Behavioral Skills Training?
Behavioral skills training, or BST, is a technique that can be used to help learners with unique needs pick up new skills – including safety skills.
If you’re working with a child – whether it’s your own or a student you work with – on safety plans, behavioral skills training should be the first method you try.
It combines performance and competency training with a set of specific skills. Behavioral skills training is an evidence- and research-based practice that includes four clear methods – instruction, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback, but we’ll break things down a bit more than those four steps in this post.
Behavioral skills training is a great technique to use as you are teaching safety plans because it is evidence-based. There are lots of studies out there showing that this really does work. It’s great for teaching these and many other life skills.
The beauty of it is that it focuses the most on modeling and practice – rather than just rote instruction. You can use this technique for any skill you want to teach, whether it’s social skills, academic skills, or even how to ride a bike! The beauty of it is that it’s easy to adapt and apply to any skill, regardless of a student’s age, grade level, or level of cognitive functioning. You can even use it to teach skills to adults!
This makes it perfect for teaching safety plans – something that you absolutely need to teach and absolutely need to make sure your child remembers for many years.
In this post, we’ll walk you through the ins and outs of how to do it.
Which Safety Skills Does My Child Need to Know?
You should prioritize the safety skills and plans you teach your child based on his age, cognitive ability, and the likelihood of these issues appearing in your day-to-day life. Focus on one or two skills at a time – try not to overload your child as he’s getting the hang of things!
Some of the most important safety skills to teach include:
- How to identify and respond to an emergency
- Basic street safety
- Identifying and addressing home safety concerns (like how to use the oven or chemical cleaning products)
- Preventing trips and falls
- Basic first aid
- How to safely interact with pets and other animals
- Internet and cyber safety
- Fire safety
- Basic safety measures like handwashing and how to wear a mask
Using Behavioral Skills Training to Teach Safety Plans: 6 Tips
Here are a few tips for implementing behavioral skills training as a way to teach safety plans.
1. Start With Clear Instruction
The first thing you should do is make sure you have a clear plan in place for how you will deliver instruction.
These instructions should be easy to remember and highlight the main teaching points. While it’s important to teach safety skills, in general, it’s equally important to make sure the students or students you are working with clearly understand the “why” behind the information.
Rather than just teaching basic fire safety, you need to make sure your child understands why it’s important to be prepared for a fire (so you can get outside safely if there’s smoke, for example).
2. Use Visual Cues
Visual cues are important when you’re teaching anybody a new skill, but especially a child with unique learning needs.
Here are a few examples of visual cues you can use when teaching your child safety plans:
- Short videos (or even social stories)
- Photographs
- Miniatures or dioramas
- Line drawings
- Charts
- Symbols
- Colored graphs
- Tactile symbols or objects of reference
When teaching something like basic street safety – which has multiple components – the more visuals you can provide, the better.
If you’re using a video to show your child how to cross the street safely, it’s important to stop at various points in the video to demonstrate and explain each of the steps: “now we are looking both ways, now we are putting our cell phone away, now we are checking that the street crossing sign says to walk,” etc.
3. Model, Model, Model
Once you’ve given sufficient instruction and visual cues, it’s time to put things into action. But before you can expect your child to demonstrate the desired behaviors himself or herself, you need to give them an example of what to look for.
Providing textual cues is only part of the process. Even when you’ve done everything you can to explain the safety procedure, both in words and in visuals, there is still room for misunderstandings.
The only way to clear up these misunderstandings is to model. Give them an actual model of what needs to be done. Tailor this modeling to your child’s unique learning style. Video modeling is one great tool, but in-person modeling is even better.
Walk your child through all the steps of the desired safety behavior. If it’s first aid, show them all of the following:
- How to locate a first aid kit
- What each item in the first aid kit does
- How to treat basic ailments with those items (like bug bites or sunburns)
- What to do if there’s an injury that can’t be treated by the first aid kit
… and so on.
4. Practice
The next step is to start practicing. The best time to practice these safety skills is, of course, before your child actually needs them. You don’t want the first time they practice their safety skills to be during an actual emergency!
Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Role playing is a great way to do this without actually throwing your child into a crisis situation.
When you practice, do your best to shape your child’s behavior to the ultimate goal.
5. Give Feedback
Be sure to provide regular constructive, positive feedback as you’re practicing the desired safety plans with your child. Make sure this feedback isn’t overly critical – focus on the positive while also highlighting where there are areas for improvement.
Safety skills are ones that you really can’t go without – so you need to make sure your child remains motivated to keep working on these skills.
6. Revisit Often
Your work does not end once your child has completed the five steps above. In fact, using behavioral skills training to teach safety plans is a never ending process one that must constantly and consistently be revisited.
Mark your calendar for times you wish to come back and revisit this model of training. Check your child for understanding regularly and make sure that this knowledge isn’t forgotten. It’s easy to forget where the fire extinguisher is or how to treat a sunburn – remind your child often and keep those visual cues at the ready!
Have a Plan
Although BST is fairly easy to implement, it’s important to go in having a plan for how you’ll conduct each step.
As you begin to teach safety plans, use our free .pdf download to keep yourself organized, develop a plan, and evaluate progress.
Be Prepared By Teaching Safety Plans
When it comes to safety, we can never be too prepared.
The tips and strategies provided in this post are a great starting point for ensuring that you and your loved ones have a plan in case of an emergency. But don’t stop here! Keep learning about how to stay safe and continue practicing your skills until they become second nature.
Try out these behavioral skills training methods to help teach your loved ones how to stay safe during emergencies. How will you prepare for the unexpected?
Further Reading
- What Safety Skills Does Your Teen Need to Know?
- Jonathan Tarbox, Doreen Granpeesheh: Behavioral Skill Training – Principles and Procedures of Acquisition
- Amy Sippl: 11 Evidence-Based Ways to Teach Daily Living Skills
- Amy Sippl: Maslow’s Hierarchy During COVID-19: Pandemic Tools For Parents
- Rebekah Pierce: Social Stories For Adolescents And Young Adults
- Amy Sippl: 25 Life Skills Every Teenager Should Know + PDF Checklist