Children and Risk

Have you ever thought about the role risk-taking plays in a child’s learning? If you reflect on it, I’m sure there are times when your child makes a move to try something out and you ask yourself, “Is that safe?” If your answer is no, you prevent your child from trying it. If your answer is maybe, you probably offer your child help and perhaps insist that your child let you help.

A primary responsibility of all parents is to keep their children safe from harm. We all take that very seriously. Further, all parents are interested in their children being able to assess risk and make good decisions as they get older regarding which risks to take and which risks to pass up.

I ran across an interesting article recently that argued that if we want children to gain skill at assessing risk and make good decisions about what risks are manageable and what risks must or should be avoided, we have to give them practice at assessing and taking risks. Hmmmmm. That sounded interesting!

So I started watching babies as they played to see what risks they face, what risks they are willing to take and what they pass up. I thought I would have a hard time finding babies taking risks. In fact as soon as I stepped out into the yard, I witnessed a wonderful example of a child about 1 year old, determined to master getting on and off our toddler bikes that stand about 8 inches off the ground. She rather unsteadily put her hands on the seat, managed to get into a sitting position with both legs on one side, and then slowly get one leg to the other side so she was straddling the bike. She was on the bike backwards, but she was straddling it the way she has seen other older toddlers do.

Of course I was tempted to help her because she did not look real steady or confident as she arranged her body on the bike. But with this recent article fresh in my mind, I went over very close, watched and talked with her about her efforts, but did not touch her.

She got off and on the bike several more times by starting with her hands on the seat. Once she fell off and landed on her side. She was unhappy about that and cried for a minute. I helped her up and said the appropriate sympathetic things. “Oh no, you fell down! That’s upsetting isn’t it? Are you OK?” etc. After about a minute, she recovered and went straight back to her task. I continued staying close and watching her efforts.

The next time she got on the bike backwards, she started working her feet against the ground and moving! Thrilling! Pretty soon she got off again and this time she held onto the handles, and rather unsteadily, she sat on the bike and moved one foot between the bike handle and her body to straddle the bike, this time facing frontwards. She got off and on several times that way and then again started working her feet against the ground and moved herself and the bike backwards. She seemed immensely pleased with herself and very satisfied with the results of her efforts!

This whole sequence of events took about 20 minutes. It involved lots of concentrated effort, 2 falls, and a huge portion of success and satisfaction. While the falls were unfortunate, they did not result in injury and they were not unpleasant enough to stop this determined little girl from trying again and again and again. My assessment was that this 1 year old was taking a reasonable risk by climbing on the bike and was able to learn a great amount through her experimentation.

Our first instinct as a parent or teacher in this situation would have been to help the child get on the bike and then shown her how to move the bike. That was my first instinct as well. But staying close to make sure nothing really dangerous happened, encouraging her efforts without directing them and supporting her when she didn’t succeed seemed to yield great results!

Am I saying you should let your child take on every risk they want to tackle? No. Am I saying never step in when your child is about to fall? No. We need to assess risk for our children carefully and stop them when a fall or a slip could result in a more serious injury. But we should also be aware that all learning involves at least a bit of risk. When we try a new dance step, step up our exercise regimen, when we tackle a home improvement project, when we assemble a toy, I could go on. With really young children, we can encourage their own organic efforts at mastering their developing physical skills rather than teaching them how to use their bodies. As children grow, we can help them reflect on how risky an attractive challenge is and how to minimize that risk.

Here’s a link that might help you start thinking about this issue - Risk-Taking and Learning. I am fascinated with this topic and I am really enjoying talking with parents about it at this series of parent meetings. As my thinking develops, I’ll write more.