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Grades 4–5 · Out and About · Badge 5

Grown-ups ask grown-ups

Recognise an adult asking a kid for help as the signal it is, and answer it with the Four Moves.

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Step 1 of 9

1Watch

Can you help me with this?

Film

Can you help me with this

A supermarket car park. A kid is walking past with a bag of shopping. A man with his car boot open asks if she can hold the door of the trolley shelter while he brings something over. The film stops with her mid-step, looking at the shelter and back at him.

22 seconds

It is a small ask. That is what makes it hard.

2The idea

The rule that covers most of it

An adult who needs help has a car park full of adults to ask. If they ask a kid, it is not because the kid is the best person for the job. Grown-ups ask grown-ups. When one asks you instead, that is the answer, and it does not matter what the question was.

It is not rude to say no to a favour. It is normal. Adults say no to each other all day. The only asks that are different are the ones from adults whose job it is to ask you things, at school or at your club, in front of everybody.

3The idea

The Four Moves, and the exact words

Say it. “I need to check with my mum first.” Or just “No, sorry.” Normal voice. No reasons.
Leave. Turn and walk, towards people. You do not wait for them to finish.
Be loud. Only if leaving did not work and they are still with you. A big voice: “Leave me alone.”
Tell tonight. Whoever it was, whatever happened, you tell a parent the same day.

The first move is always the same, and it is nearly always the only one you need. Say it and leave. Loud is for the rare time that leaving does not end it. Tell tonight is every time, including the times that turned out fine.

4The idea

The trolley shelter, worked through

Back to the car park. He wants her to hold a door while he carries something over. It is tiny. It would take ten seconds. And there are eleven adults within thirty metres of him, and he asked the ten-year-old with a shopping bag.

She says, “Sorry, I need to check with my mum first,” and keeps walking towards the shop doors. She does not explain. He says never mind. Tonight she tells her mum, who says well done, and that is the whole story. If he had followed her, the next move was loud.

5Decide

Which one is fine to help with?

Right. The teacher is at school, in front of everybody, and the job ends in a corridor full of people. That is what a normal ask looks like. The other two end at a vehicle, with you bending down or leaning in, and the person doing the asking chose a kid over every adult in sight.

Look at where the help ends. Both of those end at a vehicle, with you closer to it than you started. The teacher’s ask ends in a corridor with thirty people in it, and it comes from somebody whose job it is to ask you things. Grown-ups ask grown-ups. In a car park, that means no.

Pick one to carry on.

6Say it

The sentence that ends it

Say this in your normal voice, then keep walking

“I need to check with my mum first”

It works on every ask, including the ones that turn out fine. Nobody who genuinely needs help minds. Anybody who does mind has told you something.

7Find them

Which of these are the Four Moves?

Tap the ones that count.

Find all 4.

8Your turn

Five approaches

Interactive

Five approaches

Five short scenes of an adult asking a kid for something: directions, help with a dog, a photo, help carrying, and holding a door. For each one, choose the move. Four of them are the same move. One is a teacher.

The first move is always the same. Say it: no, or I need to check with my mum. Then leave. Loud only if leaving does not work.

9Do it

Before you leave this page

Say "I need to check with my mum first" out loud five times, in your normal voice, with a parent playing five different people asking for five different things. The fifth one should be somebody you like. Say it anyway.

Tick it when you have done it.

Lesson done.

Grown-ups ask grown-ups. If an adult asks you instead, that is your answer.

Next lesson: Saying no out loud

Badge 5 · People, Out There

5.1The dial, at ten 5.2Grown-ups ask grown-ups 5.3Saying no out loud ★Badge Challenge

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