As we settle into the January holidays, I seem to be seeing more and more posts from parents who are so protective of their children that they won't even let them play in their own front yard. They seem to want to protect them from… life. I’ve previously written about ‘free-range Tsunamis’, so I think it’s pretty clear that I am not an over-protective, ‘helicopter’ sort of parent. But, I've definitely felt the grip of 'what if?...'
What if I let my child play in the front yard and someone comes by and takes him?
What if I let my child cross the road by herself at the crossing and she gets hit by a car?
What if I let my child ride his bike around the block and he doesn’t come back?
What if I leave my child with a carer and s/he abuses her?
All stomach-plunging events that may or may not happen. I certainly can’t fight the logic of many parents who say “I may be over-protective, but I won’t risk my child’s safety”. However, I’m still not convinced that this is a healthy attitude because I simply do not believe a parent’s only job is to protect their children. Our job is far harder than that. Our job is to teach our children how to protect themselves and to help them develop into well-rounded, confident, content people while they’re at it .
The 'helicopter parent' seems to be a phenomenon of our generation. On the whole we were allowed a lot more freedom as children than we give our own kids. But I know in my heart of hearts, that the world is no more dangerous a place than it was when I was a child. It’s a different sort of place, of course it is. It’s a busier and fussier and larger sort of place. It’s a place full of traffic and people and noise. It’s a place echoed in broadcast so we don’t just know what’s happening in our street but also in a street four countries away. It’s a place of so much information and misinformation that we also know the smallest details about what’s happening in that little street far, far away.
These things are definitely factors that contribute to feeling that our children are more unsafe. But we’ve also become better at seat belts, helmets, soft-surface play, airbags, street crossings, stranger danger, life jackets and car seats. We’re less likely to drive drunk, drive when fatigued or drive when we’re no longer capable. Our childcare workers are background checked, they don’t smoke around our kids, they check on them every 5 minutes when they are asleep to help prevent SIDS and they apply sunscreen every two hours.
Really, we’ve gotten so much better at so many safety issues that what our fears really boil down to are those rare, random events – those stomach plunging, terrifying events - that we foolishly think we can control if we just kept a better watch on our kids. But sadly most abuse, abductions and child murders are committed by family members, not strangers in the big, bad world. A statistical fact that we might want to hide from so we blame 'the unknown'. Yet, if we face up to it, we realise that our best defense is surely setting firm boundaries with our children about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. Letting them know that they are loved unconditionally. Opening our ears and our hearts when we are listening to the things that they are telling us. Then allowing them the freedom to exercise their own intuition and hone their own self-protective instincts.
We spend our days telling our kids that they are unbelievable human beings with much to offer and our nights telling them that they can slay monsters. But what are we really teaching them? We may think that we keep our worries and stresses away from them, but they are masters of perception and they know, they always know.
Look at the above ‘what if?’ scenarios and ask yourself what your child is thinking.
There are monsters in our front yard waiting to pounce on me.
I’m not capable of looking out for myself.
I can’t be trusted to make decisions.
People want to hurt me.
I need to be fearful.
I don’t know about you, but I think this sort of inner-dialogue is too high a price to pay for ‘safety’. You can’t always be ‘safe’, but you can be confident, assertive and resilient in the face of danger. You can learn amazing skills that help keep you from harm. You can discover and challenge your own personal limitations. You can meet life-changing people that you greet with a friendly smile. You can be open to trying new things, maybe on your own, definitely when you’re ready. You can know that you are the sort of person who can work things out for yourself, formulate a plan, think a new thought, explore a new world. You can be sure that even though challenging things might happen, you are more than capable of rising up to those challenges and conquering your world… with a little help from your loving parents, of course.
Do you think you've found a good balance with your own children? What do you worry about most for your children? Would you like to be less or more protective?
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I rewound this post on 15.1.2011
