Risk aversion

A few days ago I shared a really interesting extract about a mothers endeavour to stop over parenting her children. This particular extract (available here) focuses on how her over parenting had lead her child to be unable to tie his shoelaces at age nine. We are lucky enough to live in a society in which our children are emotional assets; meaning we have kids because we want kids and they will make us happy. Not because we need them to plough the fields or earn us an income. This leads itself to us becoming hugely invested in every second of their life. We all are guilty of trekking after our little (and big) ones to various activities, standing on side lines in the cold, lovingly mending broken toys, buying new ones, indulging them in too much TV and endlessly picking up after them. I like to think that I encourage Seb to pick up after himself and at only two he is quite good at tidying away toys. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that it is often just easier and quicker to do it myself and then I don't have to have an argument with anyone!

Over protectiveness is hugely linked to how we allow children to manage risk. Managed risk in children's life is so important as it encourages and allows children to learn how to manage difficult situations and confrontation, builds self confidence and fundamentally is usually quite fun. If you compare your childhood to your own child's now, you will see what a loose leash you were given by your parents comparably to now. Maybe you walked alone to school at a younger age, maybe you were allowed into the fields or woods near your house, maybe you were allowed to play outside until dark?

We are all guilty of being over protective at some point. I had to sit on my hands in a huge soft play area the other day because Seb wanted to go into the big children's area on his own. Who am I to say no? What more of a managed risk could you ask for?! It is a totally contained soft play. What was the worst that could possibly happen? Of course he looked tiny next to the 4/5/6/7+ year olds but he didn't care. He had an absolute whale of a time and I sat nervously watching to see him appear at any of the netting areas on my side of the mammoth maze. 

So, top tips for allowing children to manage risk...

1. Ask yourself 'why?' Why am I saying no? Why am I doing this for my child? Why can't s/he do this for themself?
2. Don't run when they fall over. Naturally, this does not mean completely ignore them. Young children look to you for how to react to situations, if you are dramatically running over to them looking terrified, chances are they will cry and you won't actually know how bad the injuries are, if any! If you calmly say "whoopsie! Up we get!" you will quickly learn whether they are really hurt or maybe just need a quick brush down and off they pop. 
3. Enrol them in a forest school. Forest school sessions are becoming increasingly popular in both schools and pre-schools. If your child's school or pre-school doesn't have one, take a look online to see if any others do locally, sometimes you can just sign children up for these sessions. They are usually run by specifically qualified forest school staff and are entirely child led. This means, if they want to run around with sticks they can, if they want to look and bugs or climb trees, they can. The staff won't stop them within the bounds of what is safe, but what they percieve to be safe will be considerably more lenient than what regular teaching staff consider safe. (This is meant with no disregard to teaching staff, often they are limited by what is permitted within the school rules or fear of litigation.) 
4. Encourage them to do things for themselves where possible. I don't mean abandon them to do the dishes, but allow them to try. In our swimming lessons, if our child throws themselves from our arms we are encouraged to allow them to go under the water before picking them up again. This both allows them to know the risk of being on their own in the water but also permits them to try and learn further what they can achieve unaided. Each time you do something new with your child, take a little step back and see how much they can do alone. You might be surprised. 

It isn't easy. And sometimes it goes against your nature and need to protect your young. But it will honestly create a greater generation of adults who are confident and capable.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments box below.

NQP x

Tackling Time Out

I am not a huge fan of the term ‘naughty step’. I believe in the importance of labelling a child’s behaviour and not the child and it is likely that sitting a child on a naughty step will make the child think that they are naughty rather than that their behaviour is naughty. I also live in a bungalow and don’t have steps. But that’s neither here nor there. In my house we use the doormat and it is just called the doormat. It is an area of the house that you are not likely to need to use in the time the child is having their time out and everyone usually has one; so wherever you are you can implement the same consequence. Whatever you choose to use, be consistent with it. It is confusing for children to have time out spaces all over the house so try to just use one space.

It is really important to give your child warnings before they have to sit in their time out space because as I mentioned in my post about new experiences, children are still learning. We live a culture with a lot of social boundaries and expectations and we each have slightly different expectations. You can’t expect a child to immediately know how to behave in each of these instances. Sometimes a warning will also come with a distraction and importantly an explanation. Speak to your child! ‘Freddie, we mustn’t snatch. Suzie is having her turn at the moment and in a minute she might let you have a go. You wouldn’t like it if she snatched from you. Here we go why don’t you play with this toy and in a few minutes you can swap,’ as an example. It sounds obvious… but I can see that it is not. If this happens again, you remind them that they mustn’t snatch and that if it happens again they will be sitting out (or having time out, or sitting on the doormat… whatever your terminology.) Then if it happens again, sit them out. This naturally will vary slightly with the age of a child and the seriousness of the behaviour. My son is nearly two, he knows that hitting people is not allowed and if he hits someone he goes straight to the doormat. When he was younger however, he was given the benefit of the doubt initially, always.

When you first introduce your time out space, there should be a short introduction to sitting there, for example, you must stay here until mummy comes back to talk to you. You are here for hitting your brother and hitting people is not kind.

Then walk away.

If they get off the step/space, put them back. If they scream and shout. Let them. But remind them briefly, that you won’t be coming back until they calm down. I don’t usually give an amount of time to the child because I feel that different behaviours result in different times and sometimes calming down after an incident takes time for a child and generally speaking children have no concept of time.

When they are calm, or when you feel an appropriate amount of time has passed (think maybe a minute or two for a two year old, slightly more as they get older,) go back and sit with them at their level. This is not a time to shout and scream at them. The minutes they’ve sat out should have given you time to calm down if you have felt flustered or cross as well! Explain to them why they are sitting out, if they are young, keep this very brief, then explain what usually happens after this – is there someone they need to apologise to for example? Then when they are off the step, that incident is done. Forgotten. Move on. Don’t keep talking about what has happened, they have had their consequence and now we are moving forward. If they immediately do the same thing again, sit them back down. Remind them that this not OK and go through the process again.

Some top tips for managing tough behaviour:

·      Follow through! If you have warned them that they will have to sit out, sit them out when they exhibit the same behaviour.

·      Try not make ridiculous threats; if you do that again you’ll be sitting out all afternoon. No they won’t. Don’t cancel Christmas, or going to a party or friends house…these are things that you will not follow through on… (see point one)

·      Try not to tell a 2 year old to behave. It is something that slips out of our mouths so easily but means nothing to them. Explain that what they are doing is not acceptable behaviour.

·      Model good behaviour. You can’t expect children to ‘behave’ if they don’t know what that is. So show them, show them how to play, show them how to be gentle or take turns or share.

NQP x