…is to say nothing at all.
Let me explain what I mean…
For the past couple weeks, I’ve walked Pace to a park near our house every evening. One of his classmates lives across from the park and is usually there playing already and, depending on the night, they could be the only two kids there or there might be an assortment of other kids as well.
One night after soccer, there was a mom there with her two boys and this, literally, was the string of words coming out of her mouth (no, not a bunch of swearing like you might expect given that lead-in – what she said was something much worse!):
“Andrew, don’t touch those rocks! Andrew, put down that stick! Andrew, don’t go off in the bushes where I can’t see you! Andrew, careful you don’t bump your brother! Andrew, don’t hang from that climbing structure!” (I find that last one particularly rich – what else is it made for but hanging from?) 😉
I try not to be over-protective and strike a good balance between too much guidance and too little with Pace. But I also realise I’m going to naturally err on the side of wanting to protect him. So the other evening, with this woman’s words in my ears, I decided to try something. I would sit on the bench, watch Pace play with the three other kids who happened to be there that night (including his classmate) and say nothing.
- I would say nothing when one kid decided to climb up the slide instead of sliding down it leading to a crash with the kid who *was* sliding down
- I would say nothing when one kid (lightly) threw a handful of the pea gravel the play area is built on at another kid
- I would say nothing if two of the kids decided they would use twigs fallen off trees to play guns and even if they <gasp> ran with those twigs
- I would say nothing if one of the kids stormed off at one point saying “I’m going home!” after she couldn’t catch anyone in their tag game
- I would say nothing if one of them chose to stand up on the tire swing while another swung it around and a third lay underneath it
- I would say nothing if two kids decided to wrestle and ended up tumbling to the ground legs and arms, entwined
Of course I don’t want any of the kids to get hurt and I don’t want them to engage in (overly) dangerous activities. But, at the risk of sounding like a “when I was yer age!” old man, I think kids today are often also (overly) protected.
It comes from a legitimate place of concern for the most part but there are studies that show we are actually harming our kids by, well, by not allowing them to be kids – by letting them experiment, try new things, take risks, resolve their own social conflicts.
You never want someone to get hurt but sometimes a scrape is just a scrape. The kids that night didn’t die and no one even had to go to the hospital.
I doubt my one night of silence was the cause but I was extremely proud of Pace last night at the fair when he slipped running through one of the fun houses, came up with a scrape on his knee and didn’t cry or complain at all. He simply gave it a quick rub and carried on.
That’s my boy! 😉
