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Guides/Family

Teaching your
child the bag

A child who has opened the bag before is calm when it matters. A child who hasn't is frightened of a black rucksack. Ten minutes, three rules and one game, repeated every six months when you check the batteries.

5 min readWritten with the Recruit's 'what to do' cardUpdated November 2026Print this guide
The rulesthree of them

Stay. Blow. Show.

  1. Stay with your adult. If you get separated, stay where you are, in the open, and let the adults come to you. Moving makes you harder to find.
  2. Blow the whistle. Three blasts, a pause, three more. The whistle is louder than a shout and works when a voice is gone. It is in the buckle on your chest and on the lanyard in the lid.
  3. Show the card. The card in the window has your name, our number and a photo of us. Show it to a police officer, a firefighter, or a grown-up with children, and ask them to call the number.
  4. Say the rules back to me. Now say them with the lights off.
The gameten minutes

Find it in the dark

  1. Lights off, curtains shut. 'Find the torch.' The lid pocket, every time. Put it on. Now the whistle. Now the foil blanket, in the grey pouch. Make it a race against the stopwatch and let them win.
  2. 'Which pouch is water?' Olive. 'Which is plasters?' Green. The colours are the same in every bag in the house, so they learn once.
  3. Let them put the comfort toy in its pouch themselves, and write their name on the wristband. It's their bag now.
  4. Pack it with them, not for them. A child who packed the bag knows what's in it.

Never

Never frighten a child into the bag. The language is 'if the lights go out' and 'if we have to go to Grandma's in a hurry', not disaster. Confidence is the thing you are packing.

Every sixmonths

When the clocks change

  1. Check the torch and swap the glow sticks. Update the number on the wristband if it changed, and the photo if the child has grown out of it.
  2. Play the game again, lights off. It takes five minutes the second time.
  3. Walk the route to the meeting point together and let them lead. Then let them tell the next adult what the bag is for.
  4. Older children can learn the family's out-of-area contact number by heart. Make it the one number they know.

Sources, checked November 2026