College Bound Book Recommendation

I want to talk to you about the book College Bound by Ryan Hoover. Most of the content we do here at Personal Defense Network is for you, the person watching the videos, maybe the person reading the articles. Every once in a while, I find an opportunity to talk to you about helping someone else that you might want to be better prepared to defend themselves. And of course, as parents, kids are at the top of the list of the people that we want to be able to take care of themselves when we're not around because we can't always be there. Obviously, the book College Bound is intended for college-age kids going out of the home for the first time.

They're going to be in a different social environment, different physical environment, they're going to have to start thinking about their safety in a different way, and again, as parents, we're not going to be there to protect them. Now, you might be applying this to grandkids, you might be applying this to a niece or a nephew. The important thing here is, OK, there's a book that's been written. It's by a trusted PDN tour contributor, great instructor. What do we do with it?

Well, here's what I recommend you do. It's obviously a quick read, it's incredibly well formatted. There are a few pictures in there with the physical things we need to see exactly what Ryan's talking about. I think you should read the book. I think you should give the book to the young person in question.

Let them read the book, and then I think you should get together and discuss it with them. Remember, just because you watch a video or read a book doesn't make you the instructor, right? I think it'd be amazing if you could send somebody to go train with Ryan and his whole team, Fit to Fight Republic. Send them out there, let them get a whole bunch of training, let them get a bunch of awareness, let them meet some really good people, and then they're going to be safer when they go off to college, but that's just not realistic. If you read the book, that means you're going to be able to internalize the ideas: really simple, really important, really practical ideas that Ryan is serving up here.

You're going to have those in your head and then maybe you never get somebody to read the book, you know, you're going to sit down with your kids and you're going to talk to them about these ideas. Again, doesn't make you the instruction, but this will maybe make you better prepared in some really specific ways to help them navigate the social situations that can lead to a problem, lead to physical assault, lead to sexual assault if they're not handled well. But again, maybe that's not your style, maybe you're just going to give the book to them. Here's the book; I think you should read this. They're going to read it.

They're going to get whatever they're going to get out of it, um, but again, I think all three things are the best way to handle this. You read the book, they read the book, you discuss the book, uh, the book I, I've marked a couple of things like I said, I, it's really practical. This is not like my generation's, uh, you know, safety on campus kind of thing. This is not the abstinence is the only answer book. Uh, this isn't the don't drink or you'll get uh in trouble book.

This isn't the, uh, put your keys in your fist to defend yourself kind of book, um, really practical stuff. I, I, I really love this one: thought reps matter, right? Well, even just thinking about some of the things that could happen beforehand helps us all be better prepared. We're talking about big times in people's lives, and maybe this isn't just about college. Maybe it's a child moving out to the, the, maybe they're going to boarding school, maybe it's summer camp, maybe it's the first time they're moving out, they got a job, they're going to get an apartment.

They're not going to be in your immediate sphere, they're going to be a different social circle. There's a lot of really applicable, applicable practical stuff in this book. And again, thinking about what could happen that automatically makes you better prepared just thinking about those reps. It's not all about learning how to strike or learning how to grapple, learning how to escape someone who's trying to grab you and push you up against the wall, but that's in here too. Another thing that's in here that we might not even enjoy thinking about, obviously as parents, nothing negative we want to think about, but how about safe hookup habits, right?

Safe hookup habits. Is something that's covered in this book, um, socially awkward maybe for parents to talk about, especially as a parent of daughters to talk about with our kids, but it's an incredibly important topic to think about because if we're going to imagine that, you know, our kids are gonna go off and everything's gonna be perfect and pure, innocent and awesome the rest of their lives, that's a great dream, but we know it's not a practical reality. Um, I wish this book had been around when my 30 year old was leaving house age, going to college age, I'm glad that it's around so that my 10 year old, um, will be able to go through it. We'll probably go through it before she reaches the going to college age, um, because obviously personal defense and safety is something we talk about in our home. I imagine if you're watching this video, if you value my opinion, it's something you talk about in your home, and I would strongly recommend adding College Bound to the library, uh, before the kids actually leave the house.