Kids and Responsibility

As I mentioned we interviewed Dr. Michael Ungar about his book Too Safe For Their Own Good: How Risk and Responsibility Help Teens Thrive.

Before I get blog our interview and the interesting points he made, I want to touch base on this same topic but with respect to younger children.

As children grow older they are trying to make sense of their world and take on become more adept at physical activities as well as mental tasks. We are all striving to learn and overcome the challenges set up for us. If we as parents set up roadblocks by being overprotective then our children would not be walking or speaking. We need to encourage this growth in order for them to mature and grow.

Why is it that we are so overprotective. At the playground we should be encouraging the climbing behaviour. We can be somewhat fearful of the heights but we need to change our responses from one of fear to one that is more encouraging and asking if they feel comfortable with what they are doing. Risks as Dr. Ungar stated are about perception of danger, not the danger itself. Sometimes children have no fear and that is where we step in to instruct them and work with them but not to stop them unless the safety issue is paramount.

The risks out in the world are not really that bad. For our children to be more street smart they need to experience being on the street. We coddle them by driving them everywhere, partly it's convenience but the other part is our over riding concern for safety. We need to walk with them around the downtown areas of town or city, talk with them about the life of the downtown, talk about traffic and some of the dangers, etc. etc.

From the young child to the teen they need to experience and learn from life's experiences. How will they grow to be independent productive citizens if they have not made some mistakes and hopefully learned from them.

Too often we are coddling our children, stepping in and solving their problems and then wonder why they are taking greater risks in the teen years. More on this next time.