Teach Children to Distinguish Between Hazard and Risk
For part of my childhood, from about 9 to 13 years old, I lived in a house with a stream just outside his backyard. I walked down to my friend’s house on the corner, and we “walked along the stream” up the street and bypassed our area.
Sometimes we stayed on the bank of the stream; sometimes we walked on the water and went up and around the corner until it got deeper and deeper. When we got to the point where the water reached our necks, we turned and made our way back home.
Most of us have similar childhood stories. Yet by today’s standards, some may find it completely careless to allow a couple of 11-year-olds to wander in and around the pool unattended. Of course, back then, in the 1990s, it was not considered dismissive, so why now? Was there anything in our research that was inherently dangerous? We knew that we should never go down into the stream after the rain, when it turns into something more like a stormy river. We have never explored at dusk or on our own; we have always stuck together.
However, there were risks. We often came home with bumps, scratches and bruises from stepping on too sharp stones in the summer and slipping on the ice in the winter. None of us were strong swimmers, so if we ever got cocky and dared too far, things could get risky. But for the most part, we knew our limits and stuck to them.
Danger versus risk
Call it “helicopter upbringing” or “overprotectiveness,” but now parents are committed to not only protecting their children, but actively trying to prevent any harm done to them. However, there is a difference between handing over a pack of matches and telling the child that he can play with them and teaching him how to light a fire safely. One is dangerous; the other is risky.
That something was dangerous, it’s not just may inadvertently cause any harm; it could end up in harm. Choosing a dangerous act is often reckless. Or, as my son’s martial arts teacher says, that would be silly. “Tell your friends that you are not jumping off a cliff because jumping off a cliff is stupid ,” he says.
Are you trying to cross a street in a nearby alley? Eh, there is always a little risk, so we learn to look both ways before moving on. It’s still not safe, but crossing lanes is something we sometimes have to do, so we learn to do it as safely as possible. (However, trying to cross the freeway? That would be foolish.)
Child Development Specialist Rebecca Weingarten tells Today’s Parent that parents should first think about what makes something risky for your child based on your specific circumstances:
What’s dangerous in Brooklyn, New York on a Saturday night is not at all the same as in rural Louisiana. “You have to find what works for you,” says Weingarten. “He won’t – and shouldn’t – look like everyone else.”
Find ways to teach your children that risk – and sometimes negative outcome – is not only part of life, it is actually normal. Find areas where you and your children are comfortable taking a little risk, and then use common sense. Show them, for example, how to safely cut vegetables with a sharp knife. Let them slide the pie into the hot oven. Show them how to look for and test strong branches as you climb the tree.
Weingarten advises doing something with the children, not for them.
Often we don’t even realize that we are doing something for our children. It starts at a young age when they keep their hands on the beam or try to shield them from frustration. “Let the kids try things on their own and rebel a little,” says Weingarten. “This is how they find out about themselves.”
When my son was 2 years old, we took him to the coast of Maryland for the first time. When the water first touched his toes, it was clear that he was hooked. At first he stood on the edge, where the water barely reached him, clinging to the hand of an adult. But every year they held hands less and more and more and more jumped and splashed in the waves.
His father and grandfather, who have been swimming on the same shore since his age, talk to him about how to look at the waves and turn your body to prepare, or how to dive in them. He is knocked down. He goes under the water and rises with a noise. And every time that happens, he learns something and becomes more resilient.
Swimming in the ocean is always risky, no matter how strong a swimmer he becomes. But it won’t be dangerous for him.