21st-Century parenting includes complex fears about children’s safety.
By: Jaymie
Tags: Journey, Parenting, Children, Early Years, Safety

21st-Century parenting includes complex fears about children’s safety. We don’t own them! So, how do we keep them safe?

How Can We Stop The Cycle Of Being ‘Too Safe’?

As parents in 2019, we are one of the first generations to parent children growing up in a world immersed in concepts we don’t often understand. In a society where we have unlimited exposure and access to the news, technology, information about stabbings, local pedophiles and child abuse. If that wasn’t enough then our children have unlimited access (yes even as a child and yes even with parental locks — kids are smart!) to age-sensitive materials such as pornography, gaming and limiting opportunities for outdoor freedom than perhaps 20 years ago. All of these pressures, concerns, and worries are paramount for parents as we all, let’s face it, want to wrap our children up and just have them safe.

The problem is, we don’t own our children!

They are individual beings and as much as we might influence them we can not control their thoughts, actions or views. A scary thought I had to learn to come to terms with!

Well, this is one thing I have been reflecting on for a while and was triggered by the first episode of the documentary ‘Planet child’ (worth a watch).

Planet Child — Freedom To Explore

The two presenters of Planet Child explore through each episode different ways of growing up around the world and how parents influence the opportunities that children experience.

Safety was a key element in episode 1 as they send 3 groups of children under the age of 7 across a park in London with a map to navigate to a bus stop and then to eventually find the London Eye. Whilst I can imagine a lot of parents sharply breathing in at this point and being horrified at the concept, there was an element of freedom within this experiment which I was drawn too.

Now obviously the children in the experiment were safe, there were chaperones around and it was being filmed (children didn’t know this), and I am not suggesting you should put 5-year-olds on a bus in London! But seeing the success of the children and watching them grow through the experience led me to questions why as westernised parents do we have such control over the safety of our children compared to those in countries the other side of the world such as Japan. Who’s 3-year-olds walk around with machetes to collect firewood and can defend themselves against a snake. My kids see a daddy long legs on the window and scream the house down!

Safety Or Fear?

But I realised it all comes back to us as parents, to me, my own journey.

Our own experiences and journeys in the world dictate how we project our fears and worries on to others. However, quoting an enlightening message from Tony Robbins, ‘life should be a journey and journeys are only journeys if we experience and are allowed to experience unpredictable thoughts, feelings, and situations’. I had to ask myself is how does my past and experience influence, inhibit, the life journey I want my three children to experience and embrace in their childhood and later life.

Life is full of patterns and our behaviours, thoughts and those we pass on often fall into predictable behaviour patterns, of which we are often unaware. However, it is only in breaking these patterns of negative behaviour that the cycle can be stopped and a new path formed.

When reflecting on how I let my own beliefs about safety influence the upbringing of my children it hit me that the safety of my children is not what I was concerned about. Rather the fear. The fear of what could go wrong if I as a parent didn’t control the safety of my children. For me, and I imagine a number of other parents out there, this recognition of fear needs to be embraced. Actually, we are not fearful of the life experiences that all children go through each generation all over the world, but rather fear for lack of safety. A lack of safety that most of us often have about ourselves.

Stopping The Cycle Of Fear

Ellie, our eldest asked to go to the park with her friends on her bike. Now we live approximately a 5–10 minute bike ride from the park and it is a relatively safe place to be. We go there a lot as a family and Ellie knows the route well and only has to cross one main road. However, I was not yet ready to let my little girl go out into the ‘unsafe’ world. I specifically remember a long list of thoughts went through my mind:

What if she gets run over?

What if someone steals her bike?

What if she and her friend get attacked or taken?

What if something happens and I wouldn’t know to go and rescue her?

What if… What if… What if…

This list could go on for a while. However, only when I consciously made myself stop and question, where these thoughts were coming from? I realised that it was me who thought them, she didn’t, my husband didn’t, but rather I was projecting my own journey, my own memories of seeing things and hearing things happen in the same park as a child onto her journey, thus shaping and influencing her journey with my experiences.

Now I spend many sleepless nights wondering about the what Ifs of life and bringing up children but in the advice from some wise friends of mine, the context and situation that Ellie was in had no connection to the memories and thoughts I had been stressing about. Needless to say, she went to the park and I spent 30 minutes trying to busy myself, text her twice and clock watched until she came home, but that was ok. I realised that was me being in control of her safety ‘enough’ and she came home, had a lovely time and disappeared to her room for the next few hours. I realised in reflecting upon this event that our children can be ‘safe enough’ to allow freedom and learning but that we often create a ‘too safe’ environment which restricts and inhibits their development.

The point I am trying to make here isn’t how much you should worry about your children’s safety or even what is appropriate or not for each child, you know your children and their individual needs and competencies, but rather to stop and question your jerk reaction to ‘no its not safe’ the next time your child asks you do to something which makes you shiver in fear. A wealth of research out there proves that children seek out risk, children need exposure to a certain level of fear whether that is climbing a tall tree, leaving the house without you for the first time or going on their first date. As parents, we need to recognise the ‘fear’ of their safety actually lies within us, within our vulnerabilities from our own journeys and actually we should embrace those, good and bad. This allows us to equip children as early as possible with the skills to enjoy freedom whilst ensuring they are ‘safe enough’ not ‘too safe’.

How Do I Stop The Cycle?

Remember earlier on I mentioned the idea that each child is born into a journey. Although circumstances people are born into are not within their control, as parents we can work to reduce the limitations and constrictions our children face by reflecting on how they build up their identity. I am not suggesting that each child will be doctors or scientists but that whatever they are set out to become works for them and that we have done our part to enrich their journey in a positive way.

I could draw on a wealth of child development theory here to explore attachments and children’s learnt behaviour by copying the adults around them. But instead, I want to connect you to the idea that as well as children copying your behaviour and actions, your personal thoughts, memories, and decisions based on your journey is impacting their freedom and opportunity to tell their own story and life journey.

Across my time as an Early Years practitioner and working with young people and families the same behaviour can be observed through generations within the family. Whilst this is not always a bad thing, it’s the negative influences and patterns that we often don’t see which influence your child’s journey.

This is a scary option to awaken too but one I would challenge you to embrace.

If this blog has resonated with you then I encourage you to embrace the challenge to start your journey of change!

Challenge

A simple way to get you started is to list all the safety strategies you put in place as a parent — Good and Bad!

Take some time to reflect and celebrate your job providing the ones that prevent immediate danger! Now start examining a few of the ones that you find yourself putting in place, or saying ‘no’ to. Where do they come from? Why do you have those habits/Thoughts? What impact are they having on your child’s journey? What can you start to change or let go of?

Until next time…It’s time to stop the cycle!