Ready Kids › Out and About › Badge 3 › Lesson 3.3
All courses›Out and About›Badge 3
Your family word
Agree a family word, keep it, use it, and change it the moment it has been used.
1Look
The word nobody else knows
Kitchen table
A kid and a parent at a kitchen table, leaning in, saying something quietly to each other. Nothing written down anywhere.
It takes ten seconds to agree and it does one very specific job.
2The idea
Why a word beats a face
Sometimes plans really do change, and somebody who is not on the list turns up with a true story. The family word is how a true story proves itself. If your parent sent them, your parent told them the word. No word, no lift. Even somebody you know. Even somebody who knows your name.
Knowing your name is easy. It is on your bag, and your friends say it in the playground all day. The word is not on anything, and only a handful of people have ever heard it.
3The idea
How the word stays a word
It is a word that would not come up by accident. Not your dog’s name, not your street.
Nobody writes it down. Not on paper, not in a phone, not under a made-up name.
Only the people on your pickup list know it. Not your best friend, not even just in case.
The day after anybody uses it, you change it.
And this is how you ask for it: “What’s the word?” That is the whole question. If they have it, you go. If they do not, you go back inside and ring your parent. You do not give clues, and you do not have to explain.
4The idea
Your neighbour, without the word
Say your neighbour from next door pulls up and says your dad asked her to get you. You ask: what’s the word? She laughs and says she has no idea, your dad just rang her. That might be completely true. It does not matter. You say you have to ring him, and you stand back and do it.
Your dad answers. Yes, he did ask her, he forgot the word, go on. You go, and the rule is still whole, because you checked. Next time he tells her the word, and she has it, and you are in the car in ten seconds.
5Decide
Your neighbour says your dad asked her to collect you. She does not know the word. Now what?
Pick one to carry on.
6Say it
How you ask for it
Say this out loud, in your normal voice
“What's the word?”
That is the whole question. If they have it, you go. If they do not, you go back inside. It is not rude, and you do not have to explain.
7Find them
Which of these keep the word working?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 4.
8Build it
Add it to the family agreement
The family agreement
The card from earlier: pickup list, backup place, and now a line that says the family word exists and the date it was agreed. The word itself is never typed. The card only records that there is one.
The card says there is a word. It never says what the word is. That is the point of it.
9Do it
Before you leave this page
Agree the word with a parent tonight. Say it once, quietly, to each other. Then do not say it again until somebody at a gate needs to hear it.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
One word. Agreed. Never written down. Nobody collects you without it.
Take the Badge Challenge