Why I Teach Self-Defense to Kids (Before They Ever Need It)

Every year, I have a parent tell me some version of the same thing: "I hope she never actually needs any of this." I always say the same thing back — so do I.

That’s the part people misunderstand about self-defense training for kids. It’s not built around a worst-case scenario. The real skill is not the punch or the kick. It’s not the joint lock or the escape, but the confidence to stand up for themselves and to speak up for others long before anything ever goes wrong. I started teaching kids martial arts because I love martial arts. I kept teaching because of what I watched happen in a hundred small moments where a kid decided their voice counted.

Here’s the part that bothers me, though. We hand girls an entire mental checklist before they’re even old enough to drive — what to wear, how to walk to the car, how to hold their keys. FBI data shows nearly 9 out of 10 reported rape victims are female, and the vast majority of that violence is committed by men. If the numbers are that lopsided, why is prevention still treated as almost entirely a girl’s job? I don’t teach self-defense because I believe it’s on girls to prevent their own assault — I teach it because the confidence it builds serves kids for life. But that can’t be the only conversation happening. We have to be just as intentional about teaching boys — about consent, respect, and taking a "no" seriously the first time.

That belief is at the center of the book I’m writing, too. Sam Hill isn’t the strongest person in her dojo. What she’s learning — slowly, one white-belt mistake at a time — is that her voice matters even when it shakes.

If you’re a parent wondering whether your kid is "too little" to start something like this: they’re probably not. The goal was never to make them fighters. It was to raise a generation of girls who never once wonder if their voice counts less than a boy’s, or if they matter less.