Family Battle Drills

An Army battle drill is "a collective action rapidly executed without applying a deliberate decision-making process." (FM 7-8) Soldiers are taught battle drills so that they all know how to apply fire and maneuver tactics in commonly encountered situations without a lot of overhead of planning and coordination.

While families likely won't find themselves needing to deal with reacting to a near ambush, there are plenty of other situations where having a pre-defined and practiced response to a situation will serve a family well.

---

House Fire
A fire in the home is a situation that is unlikely, but well worth preparing for given the severity of the risk. There are a few actions that you can train your family to take in the event of a fire.

Escape Routes
Plan escape routes from each bedroom to the nearest exit door and a secondary escape route via a window in the room. Depending on the architecture of your home, you may have to figure out how to get down off of a second-story window. Planning a secondary escape route is necessary to account for the situation where the fire is blocking the primary exit.

​Rally Points
Getting out of the house is important, but so is linking back up once you're out. Pick a spot close by that's easy to remember and locate when things are dark and chaotic. The mailbox or a friendly neighbor's house across the street is a great rally point.

---

Separation In Public
Being in crowds with my kids is one of the most stressful situations for me personally. By nature, I'm a protective person and when my kids are surrounded by strangers, I instantly go into threat assessment mode. I know that it's probably not necessary, but I'd rather be wrong this way than tempt fate. There are also some things that I do to help mitigate that concern.

Contact Info
Write your name and phone number on a slip of paper and have your son keep it in his pocket. Should he end up in a situation where he needs help, having your contact info written down will be one less thing to have to remember in an already stressful situation.

Find an Adult
If you're at a baseball game or a theme park or some other large event, there's bound to be uniformed staff that your son can identify. Point them out when you get there and make sure that your son can identify them too. As a backup option, advising your son to approach other parents to ask for help can also work if there is no uniformed staff.

Rally Points
Each location you go to should have easily identifiable landmarks that make good rally points. A flag pole, the left field bleachers, the tallest ride in the park. A good rally point is one that you can see easily from anywhere at the site. It's also helpful to set a limit on the length of time between when a kid realizes he's gotten separated and when he starts heading towards the rally point.

---

Natural Disaster
Mother nature has a way of sneaking up on you and kicking you when you least expect it. A natural disaster can effect a local area like a neighborhood, or a regional area like a city or county. Your response to these situations should adapt given the scope of the disaster. Practicing the response to a disaster can be combined with family camping trips as there is a lot of overlap between the two.

Local Disaster
In the event of a local disaster, it's likely that there will be help on the way quickly. Assuming that the threat has passed, your best bet is to hunker down and wait for help to arrive. Often, a local school or church will serve as a temporary shelter until you can find a more permanent solution.

To prepare for a local disaster, it's good to have a 3-day supply of food and water stored somewhere safe. You may want to arrange with a friend to be each other's backup plan for helping respond to a local disaster on the chance that your supplies are ruined as a result of the event. Having someone else that you can go to in the event that you have to find a place to stay is a great solution.

Regional Disaster
Responding to a regional disaster is a much more complex situation. It's likely that nearby shelters and hospitals will be overwhelmed so the best response may be abandoning your home and traveling far away to be with family well outside the affected area.

In this situation, it's important that you secure water, food, shelter, and transportation. There's a good chance that you won't be able to use your car as it or the roads might be damaged beyond use, so you should have a plan for how to pack your supplies with you on foot.