Grass Roots Muddy Boots Forest School.
Many parents are learning about the huge benefits of children engaging in risky play but as a parent, one of the biggest questions you may have is:
how do I keep my child safe?
Here are 3 simple ways to help you keep your child safe during adventurous play, allowing them the opportunity to gain all the benefits of taking risks. Children seek out adventures that involve risk because of their desire to learn and as parents we want them to learn and there are huge benefits to encouraging children to engage in such activities. Adventurous play is providing an environment where children can practice being safe and… as your child’s first and most important teacher, you can teach them.
You may have told your child over and over again about risks and yet he or she still attempts the same activity that scares you to death. This is because the drive to explore and experience in children is strong. It is better for you not to push against the tide and instead go with them and facilitate learning for themselves. Finding out their own abilities and limitations and how to stay safe!
We all say it and I am no exception. It is a reflex response to potential danger but is not helpful to a child.
The trouble is, it doesn’t tell them anything about what to be careful of but just serves to cause alarm and increase anxiety.
It is more beneficial to a child to say
“notice the bumpy ground”
“have you spotted the nettles?"
so you are being more specific about what they need to be careful of and giving your child the opportunity to think about how they can avoid getting hurt.
Try and avoid saying no straight away when your child heads off towards a potentially dangerous situation. Instead, form a team and ensure that your child knows you are not going to stop him/her but just help them have a go at what they want to but safely.
Aim to get your child to tune into how they are feeling.
Choose words that make your child question how they are feeling and then express this. This will encourage them to notice things around them to keep safe. For example:
do you feel safe?
do you feel balanced?
are you still having fun?
Validate children's feelings
"I can see from your face that you are concentrating well."
If your child says they feel unsure, then you could validate this by saying;
"I understand that you feel unsure because this is new to you and feeling unsure is a natural"
If your child says they feel worried, you can validate this by giving insight from your own experience when you were a child and that it is really good that they have recognised when they are feeling worried. This will help them identify when an activity is not safe for them…yet.
Be open with your child that you have made mistakes in the past when you didn’t listen to how you were feeling inside. It is your body’s way of telling you that you are not big enough or strong enough or maybe not developed the skills needed to achieve this yet.
This is the first step for children to start assessing their own risk.
What are the dangers?
This will benefit you too, as it will give you time to assess the situation for yourself.
Put your pretend danger spotting binoculars on.
Talk about the potential dangers you can see.
This process of talking through the potential problems will inform you what your child already knows, which may surprise you. It will also give you a chance to point out things that they may have missed. Two heads are better than one.
Here are some examples of sentence starters that you can use
“Have you spotted the water running in front of the rope swing?”
“Did you notice the uneven ground in front of you”
“I can see a problem with the swing”.
If children don’t feel safe or express that they feel worried or frightened then it is an indicator that they have reached their maximum ability for that activity and it’s time to leave it for now.
Needless to say that they will be more inclined to have another go using the knowledge they have gained another day.
Equally so, using the tree climbing example, if they are feeling super confident and want to go higher but are physically unable and are asking you for help to get them on to the next branch then they are not ready to go higher…yet. If a child needs help to get onto the next branch … they will also struggle to get down and this means that they aren’t safe.
The truth is that they are just not ready for this step and it is important not to help your child by lifting them on to the next branch or up to the next level. They may need to be taller, stronger, develop their technique, all of which will come with time and practice.
This is a great question to ask your child. For example, they want to climb a tree. By asking them if they have a plan it challenges them to think about what their objective is and how they are going to achieve it.
Talk about how and why.
“ Which branch will you pick to start on?”… “Why?”
“Why did you choose this branch next?”
“How are you going to avoid slipping on that mossy branch?”
this is a good way to teach children how to assess their own risk.
They may choose a low down horizontal branch which would be perfect and they may say they made this choice because it is the easiest to stand on. You may have to revert to being a danger spotter if that tree looked rotten for example and say “I’ve spotted that this branch may not be stable because it is rotten” “What do you think might happen if you put your weight on it?”
It is also worth remembering that a child’s idea of risk is often different from ours. I have had lots of times when a child has said I am going to climb this tree and I had visions of them hanging on to the top branch unable to get down and me being unable to get up t them. In reality, they have been delighted to balance on the first low branch. This is why finding out what their plan is can be so useful.
Over time children can become experts at assessing their own risk in different contexts in life, giving them the opportunity to learn more about: the world, their abilities, the possibilities open to them, and most importantly how to stay safe when you are not there.
I hope you have found this useful and it would be great this week if you can use one of these tips and see what happens….I would LOVE to hear from you!
For some ideas on simple phrases to use instead of ‘be careful,’ you can download this free guide. Wildlings have also done a great podcast about adventurous play.
