Kids and Risks

“Be careful!” “Stop, that’s too high!” “No, no, you might fall!”

We hear it all the time at playgrounds. Usually by parents who believe that if they holler instructions nonstop for a whole hour, that they'll keep their kid from falling. It's more likely, however, that they're keeping their kids from engaging more deeply in a more beneficial type of play.

When we let children take risks -- “how far can I jump?” “how high can I go?” -- we are giving them the gift of learning to assess their own abilities and their environment. We also allow them to learn about themselves.

We can protect them from hidden hazards they can’t see (a sharp object on the ground, a weak tree branch.) But our job is also to provide age-appropriate risks so that they can feel unsure, be challenged, problem-solve, and gain confidence out of their own successes.

At playgrounds, we can do this by stepping back more, and instructing less. We might watch quietly as our toddler grabs onto that big spider web for the first time and discovers the tension or slackness of the ropes. We might keep an invisible hand close by they pull themselves up onto a step. Or we might watch as a preschooler negotiates a jump from a high place, and think "will she, or won’t she?" IAll those amazing things happen in that little brain!

It's when we start barking instructions and warnings at them that we threaten to override some of that bubbling magic.

And here's the awesome flip side: if things don’t work out as a child had hoped, most will try and try again until they’ve mastered it. Or, they will decide that this was a bad idea, and wisely avoid it next time. All good things.

In terms of preventing injury? Sure, it helps to stay close and intervene when necessary. But it also helps to not to take the lead. Resist the urge to point to a higher step and say, “can you jump from HERE?” The same goes for lifting a child onto the monkey bars when they haven’t gotten their on their own. This risk-assessment thing only works if a child does the challenging and deciding on their own terms.

Taking risks (physically, cognitively, and socially) makes for a child who better knows themselves and the environment they are in. And learning to manage experiences is a fundamental part of what they will carry through school and life.

As for this photo up at the top? What did he do when he leapt off that three-foot wall? He completely wiped out, slid four feet across the ice on his belly, and wound up with cold snow all over his pants. Then he got up, and gleefully ran away as if nothing had happened. But actually, a lot had happened.

So let your child take that leap, climb a little higher, and go up the slide instead of down. You might be surprised by how far they can go.