Summertime Boo-boos

Several years ago, I saw an elementary school age girl on her scooter decked out in knee pads, elbow pads and a helmet. My immediate reaction was how stifling to have to wear all that equipment for a simple ride down a straight sidewalk with no hills or turns. Needless to say, my kids ride their scooters without that safety equipment, but they do wear helmets when riding their bikes (I’m not totally against all forms of safety!).

Now with warmer temperatures tugging the kids outside, the tension between parents wanting to protect our children from hurt and the inevitable scrapes, bruises, bloody knees and bee stings mounts to the point where we often prevent our children from experiencing discomfort.

More and more evidence is finding that the more we wrap kids in cotton wool to avoid physical—and emotional—pain, the more harm we’re doing. Specifically, we’re arresting the development of their ability to cope with failure.

Several years ago, an article in Psychology Today questioned whether we were raising a nation of wimps. The story pointed out that playgrounds have all-rubber cushioned surfaces with no merry-go-rounds with parents play-coaching their children on the equipment; hand sanitizers accompany kids everywhere, even to school; and more parents are trying to eliminate failure from their children’s lives.

The result? Kids who lack coping mechanisms for all types of pain, both physical and mental/emotional. “We learn through experience and we learn through bad experiences. Through failure, we learn how to cope,” said child psychologist David Elkind, a Tufts University professor.

One way we can let our kids experience failure is by letting them literally fall down. Seriously, a few skinned knees won’t hurt a child, nor will a broken arm or leg. Sure it will be painful and inconvenient, but it can also be the best learning experience of their young lives.

I’m not advocating letting your kids do truly dangerous things, but there’s a wide line between dangerous and Dangerous with a capital D. The latter should be avoided, but the former is instrumental in childhood. How else will a child find out how far he can push himself if he’s restricted to very narrow play parameters?

So as summer gets underway, remember that skinned knees are an important part of your child’s foundation—and that allowing him to experience failure will help him soar in later life.

Until next time,

Sarah

Rough Play

I was popular as a child, not for my sparkling personality, but because I was the proud possessor of a real tree swing. Now I know what you’re thinking: other kids in the neighborhood had swings or tires from tree branches. Ah, but no one else had a tree swing attached to a tree that had a fork from which four trunks extended to the sky, thus creating the perfect place from which to climb up and jump out of to gain maximum velocity.

Yes, this simple piece of wood with a rope inserted through a hole in the middle was, quite simply, paradise. Thirty years later, I can still remember the thrill of standing in the crook of the tree, board between my legs, hands on the rough rope, and then the jump back and up to catapult myself out of the tree and the glorious sensation of flying through the air.

Surprisingly, no one every got seriously hurt from the tree swing—and we played on it a lot. Even when the rope snapped once on the backswing and my friend fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes, she only experience some scratches. Once my dad replaced rope, we were back in business. That tree is long gone in my parents' back yard, and none of our trees have branches low enough to set up a tree swing for our children.

Nowadays, we parents are more fearful that our children will get hurt doing most anything. Schools have rules about how high the playground equipment can be (and most have not the see-saws and soaring jungle gyms of my childhood). Parents encase children in all manner of knee and elbow pads and helmets for the simplest things. Yes, I’m a proponent of helmets for bike riding—but not for riding tricycles down the sidewalk.

I’m sad that there are no climb-worthy trees in our yard or neighborhood. I used to climb to the top of many trees in my neighborhood with my friends, loving the thrill of looking down on earth from a bird’s eye view.

Unfortunately, today’s child has not the experience with exploring “danger” like I and many of my contemporaries did. It was never truly dangerous, but there was that sense that we were conquering the world or something pretty close to it. We tested ourselves and saw that we could overcome our own fears in a myriad of ways as we climbed and soared.

For my kids, I encourage exploration and danger, in the sense that we give them freedom to try things that sometimes makes me a little bit uncomfortable. Not really dangerous, but just a little bit danger-filled so they can test their own mettle—and learn something about themselves in the process.

Until next time,

Sarah