A very prominent issue I hear from both sides is that there is a struggle to gauge risky behavior with manual processors. Wives that question their husbands judgement, husbands offended that their wives are implying they’re incompetent and can’t take care of children (just an example)Parents who are shocked and bewildered by the behavior their Manny child does (one time Cameron dropped a melon on his brother’s head, his response was that he asked the 18 month old permission before he did it.) Not only these, but individuals who find themselves in undesirable situations time and time again because they’re struggling to think through a decision before it gets too late. Often they find themselves waist deep in trouble before they realize they might be in hot water. This is largely when the danger is perceived as ENJOYABLE. This box has been sitting on my word processor for months almost finished. I finally tweaked a few things. This box can be adjusted for children or adults. I’m always looking for new patterns to help our manual processors navigate this world.
Name: Safety Box
Type of Box: Defense box (provides shield of protection)
Qualifications to sort here: Things must be low risk with a high benefit to be considered safe. When things are high risk and high benefit, it’s NOT safe to engage. It’s always good to get a second opinion when rating things in this box. Other people might have perspectives that help you identify risks you weren’t aware of.
Purpose: This is the box to help you check if a suggestion or activity is safe to do. This box is for things or ideas or things that friends or others ask, tell, or want you to do.
When manually processing, it’s too overwhelming to quickly try to gauge or examine the ways something could possibly affect us, as a result, we make unsafe or unintelligent decisions. Sometimes you are already in the middle of this before you realize it, and its already too late, you are in danger. This box PREVENTS that. This is the box where you can check to see if something is safe to do and helps you forecast how it may effect you. Drugs and other addictive behaviors can be evaluated here and logically show you the damage that occurs from participating in these activities.
Benefit: Staying safe and making good choices is one of the most important benefits. It will also help you stay out of danger. Life can be a really fun and enjoyable experience, it can also be full of times when you need to evaluate your surroundings, choices, or resources to see if you are engaging in risky behavior. Sometimes it really fun to walk to the park, but walking to the park can be unsafe if you are doing it alone without your parents or trusted adult. This world is full of wonderful people, but there’s also bad ones too. And while we can’t control what others do, think, or say, we can definitely make sure we are in control of our safety. This box, the criteria, and the Assessment Chart can help you analyze if the behavior you are engaging in can have lasting and dangerous consequences that might be hard to consider without seeing it on paper. The only times I’ve seen a Manny engage in wreak-less behavior was when their mind was too overwhelmed to consider the level of negative impact of his resources before he began to engage in the activity (which in many cases, is fun) This box helps you to learn how to be wise, it helps you to think critically and quickly in a dangerous situation. When you can think quickly and make a safe assessment of your surroundings, other people learn to trust you. Trust shows the people around you that you respect them and their boundaries and also that you respect your own boundaries. This box helps you to develop self control and impulse control by examining your surrounding before you put yourself in a compromising position. Consistently doing these things make you a reliable person and safe to follow in an emergency.
Measurement:Level of Safety vs Level of Entertainment/Enjoyment
Criteria questions:
- Have I asked my parents if this is safe? (Skip this if you are an adult)
- Could I or someone get hurt by this? Y/N
- Is this safe to do at my age? *SEE SAFETY ASSESSMENT CHART*
- Am I qualified to do this? (Like having a legal drivers license to drive)
- Can this be safe if I do it with a trusted adult, or at a different age or time? Example, driving after you have a license, or walking to the park with your parents vs walking alone)
- Has someone told me to keep a secret from adults or other people? Y/N
- Will keeping a secret put me or others in danger?Y/N
- Measure the overall risk VS enjoyment level
This box is for anyone- manual processor or not. This may come more naturally for some brain types, so they may not need to view this to gauge their safety. For those who benefit from concrete instructions, this not only does that but also provides a way to assign measurement and data to otherwise abstract concepts.