(pop music)
- [Voiceover] The Parenting Junkie.
- HI guys, and welcome back to The Parenting Junkie.
The place to go to love parenting
and for parenting from love.
Today I want to talk about safety and danger
and the balance between them
as we navigate these parenting waters.
Living in the U.S. today, I sometimes feel as
though culturally we have a competition between us.
Who is most anxious over dangers in the world?
Who is most worried?
Who is most protective?
When to comes to taking risks
and anything that we perceive as dangerous.
When you walk around the playgrounds
it is a cliche, but it's true, that you have
parents hovering over kids shouting,
"Be careful, be careful, be careful."
And helping children with every little step up the ladder
to the slide, etcetera, etcetera.
The fact is that kids need to take risks
in order to learn the limitations of their bodies
and of the world.
They need to be able to stumble and fall
and do things that are perceived as dangerous
and scary to their parents.
If we weren't to let them do that,
they would never learn to crawl, to roll over, to walk.
No baby has ever learned to walk without falling down.
So, the same is true for any learning curve.
It includes stumbling, falling, risk taking.
It includes something that is just out of
your comfort zone that you just can't do,
and that it's just too hard, just slightly too dangerous
for your skill level, in order to master the next level.
We seem to be addicted to anxiety, as parents.
To be worrying the whole time.
About pedophilia, about using knives,
about going out alone, about playing in the yard,
or about diseases, about getting a cold,
about falling behind academically.
Worry seems to be at every single corner.
I'm not one who sees the past as this
nostalgic wonderful era
and who dislikes the day and age that we live in.
I think there's so many wonderful things
about living today, and the past wasn't that rosy.
But one thing we can say about the previous
generation growing up, and even our own selves,
when we were growing up,
kids had so much more freedom
and so much more alone time
away from adult protection.
Kids were sent out to play on the street
with a gang of other kids and told to come home
when the street lights come on.
And that meant that they had long stretches of time
to take risks, and to be on their own,
and to navigate the world, free-range.
If you follow the Free-Range Kids movement,
led by Lenore Skenazy, and I strongly recommend that you do.
And if you read her wonderful book,
you'll learn that anxiety is something that
isn't necessarily founded in truth.
There isn't more pedophilia, or more dangers for kids today.
It's not more dangerous for them to be out
playing in the street.
We simply treat these things differently.
If you look at the evolution of holidays,
such as how Halloween is treated.
Or how going out alone is treated,
we can see that anxiety has just
peaked with our day and age,
but the dangers have not.
It's a truly tragic loss that kids can no longer
go out by themselves in so many neighborhoods.
And that the ages of independence
are so much later and later.
We don't want our children growing up thinking
that the world is a dangerous place.
And further thinking that even the dangers that do exist
are too much for them to navigate
and handle skillfully.
If they feel like they need constant protection
they might be timid and anxious all the time.
In fact, for most of us, real dangers
are very few and far between.
If we're really honest about the statistics.
Living in a worst case scenario all the time
is called catastrophic thinking.
And that means always imagining the worst
and it's a pretty miserable way to live.
The fact is that when you're small
you get to make small mistakes.
And the repercussions aren't that big.
So it's really important to be able to practice
making mistakes, and taking risks
as you grow up, because those mistakes
and those risks get bigger
and have bigger repercussions later on.
So if you don't allow your child to take any risks,
and to take ownership of their own freedom
in that sense, slowly but surely as they grow up.
And all of a sudden when they hit 18
they're supposed to be an adult.
And their supposed to be able to
make their own decisions
and take their own risks.
Well, the risks that one might take at 18
are far more serious than the risks
one might take at three or four.
So, rather than piling all the independence
on them all at once, how 'bout we build it up
in a way that's appropriate to their maturity level.
Practicing good judgment and making small mistakes
when you're small can save you
from making big mistakes when you're big.
Having someone hover over you
and protect you all the time,
or shout, "Be careful" at every step,
sends the message that you can't be trusted.
And when that message is internalized,
that creates a frightened and anxious kid.
Don't forget that anxiety is contagious
and our kids look to us to read
whether a situation is, or is not dangerous.
And if we're constantly sending out these
false alarms, that there's danger everywhere,
and that they need to be careful of everything
and everyone, then they're going to internalize that
message and live with that same anxiety about the world.
Rather, we want to cultivate a message of trust.
A message of skill.
A message of building good judgment
and making good choices.
So how do we cultivate more trust
and a child who is trustworthy?
Well, we begin by giving them trust
and putting the risk taking in their hands.
Allow your children to do for themselves
the things that they are interested in.
So say they are interested in cooking,
but you feel it's dangerous.
That's something that you're going to need to
work through with yourself
and figure out a way of allowing them to cook
in a pleasant environment
using things like knives and fire
in a way that is safe and appropriate
for their skill and maturity level.
But you must let them stretch their capabilities
and take some risks.
Remember, you cannot learn to walk without falling.
Failure is our most important teacher.
So where the failure isn't too great,
where the failure isn't too risky,
allow them to take the full risk and fail, if necessary.
If there's any way for you to create a
safe environment that your kids
can be let out of your sight,
let them.
It's so important for kids to be allowed
and trusted to have alone time, when they want it.
Try developing mantras that encourage trust,
instead of constantly saying, "Be careful."
Things like, "I trust you."
Or, " I see that you know how to stay safe."
Or my personal favorite, is when my kid asks me
if he's allowed to climb on something,
or jump off something.
I ask him, "Do you feel safe doing that?"
Sometimes he'll say, "No, I don't think that's safe."
And I feel like that's developing his judgment
about what is and isn't safe.
And sometimes he'll think, yes I can do that
and he'll take that risk.
And I think that that's probably a healthy way
for him to develop a sense of trust
in his own body and in his own limits.
Instead of saying things like, "Be careful."
how 'bout giving them useful information.
If you're trying to climb a really difficult mountain,
or something, and someone just keeps shouting,
"Be careful, be careful.", it inhibits, and it creates
anxiety, but it doesn't actually help you
be more careful.
So instead, you might want to give them information
that you think they may not have.
For example, "That floor looks slippery.
"It might be wet."
Or, "That wall is very high."
And just mention things that might
make their judgment more easy.
If looking at your child climb a ladder,
or a tree, is too difficult for you.
If you constantly think that they're gonna fall
and you're inhibiting them and creating anxiety
then look away, if necessary. (laughs)
Of course, I'm not saying you shouldn't
trust your intuition, and if you think something
truly isn't safe, of course, you must set a limit on that.
And your job is to keep your children safe.
But don't forget that they need to push those
limits so that they can take on more and more
of their role in making those decisions.
And being independent.
So, that's why I say, look away if necessary,
if you think this is probably safe and within his realm,
but it's making me edgy,
I'm just gonna look at my phone,
or look over here while he does that.
To give him the space to try it out
without your anxiety infringing upon his experience.
What we need to realize as parents is that
sometimes we believe that worrying is our job.
That worrying is a good use of our time.
That somehow worrying is doing something
when we can't do anything.
Often our children are gonna do things
that we can't do anything about.
Just like a baby learning to walk.
And we have to develop a trust, rather than a worry.
So if you can realize that worrying is just contagious,
and unpleasant, and creates miserable
environment for all of you,
and instead, use that capacity, use that energy
for developing trust.
For developing mindfulness about it.
Then you're setting on your way
to a safer environment, in fact.
Because a child who has that internalized voice of,
I am trustworthy, I can make good decisions.
I can decide what's safe, I'm good at this.
I am responsible.
They're gonna internalize that message
and live up to those expectations.
A child who has a mother who's constantly saying,
"Be careful, I'm worrying, and you'll fall,
"and you'll hurt yourself, and you'll cut yourself,
"and you'll burn yourself,
"and you'll somehow go wrong.",
is gonna internalize that message.
And I think that they're probably like
to be more clumsy, have more accidents
because they don't have that empowerment of,
Mom trusts me, I can do this.
If you want to learn more about the safety
of danger, and the danger of safety,
I really recommend reading "Free to Learn"
by Dr. Peter Gray.
I recommend him all the time.
But it really shows how children in most societies,
throughout most of history were free,
were free to take risks and to be alone
and to develop those skills
independent of adult anxieties.
Another great read on this is "Playborhood"
which is about cultivating the opportunities for play
outside of the watchful eyes of parents.
And the third, which I recommended before,
is "Free-Range Kids."
And I think that this is just such an important read
for all parents, especially parents in the U.S.
For further reading on this, check out
"Beware Dangerism" by Gever Tulley.
Which is all about how our society has created
these anxieties, and kids are no longer allowed
to climb on the monkey bars,
or slide down the fireman pole
for fear of danger.
Where statisctically, they are actually no more dangerous
than when you and I were growing up.
Do you give your kids the freedom to take risks
and to play with dangerous things by themselves?
If so, I'd love to hear about it.
Please head on over to TheParentingJunkie.com
and leave a comment now
because I want to hear your experience
and your advice on risk taking
and on danger versus safety with our kids
and how to find the balance between them.
Keep on loving parenting and parenting from love.
Because your kids need you
almost as much as you need them.
Bye.