February 2023 – Page 2

February 8, 2023February 8, 2023

Real Life Risky Play

On a fall afternoon, I was outside supervising a group of neighborhood kids playing in my yard and neighboring yards. I am a big fan of risky play, so watching them scale apple trees and climb up our rope swing was bringing me so much joy! (And yes, some anxiety. But I do trust them and their ability to know when it’s too much for their body.)

At one point they found a ladder lying on the ground that they worked together to prop up onto a stump in the yard- yay for teamwork! They were using this ramp to climb up and down and hang on and jump off of it, it was great to watch. However, upon closer inspection, I realized that right under the propped-up ladder were several 2×4 boards that were full of rusty screws and nails.

Instantly their risky play turned to dangerous play.

I was able to take a second to gather my thoughts and plan my next move, how I reacted could drastically change the outcome of their work.

There was danger, but nothing was immediate. Courses needed to be changed, but it wasn’t a life-or-death situation at the moment that I needed to swoop in right away.

I offered them some awareness of the situation,
“Hey guys, let’s look around really quick. What do you see on the ground? Boards with nails in them? Yeah, that can be dangerous if we fall on them! What can we do to make this a little safer?”

Their first solution was to move the boards away from where they were playing, but with the number of children and only myself there to supervise them, I didn’t feel like this would be a safe option to make sure all of the boards were picked up and moved without a nail going through someone’s hand or foot, so I had to tell them we needed to find a new option.

After some more deliberation, they decided to work together to pick up the ladder and move it to a different area to prop up and play on again. After moving it, the ladder was taller and in a more risky position to play on, but the danger of it was gone because it was a safer landing than the alternative.

They played with their setup for hours and hours with no incident! And maybe they would have played in their first location for that long with no harm to anyone either, but the danger there was not something I could ignore.

Risky play is important and good and needed, but as a caregiver, it’s my job to determine when risky play turns into dangerous play.

There was so much learning in this situation, both for the children, and myself! I am not perfect and every situation isn’t handled this well every time. But with practice and time, I’ve learned more and more how to differentiate between risky and dangerous play and the best way to approach the changes we need to make in order to keep everyone safe, while still giving them opportunities to learn through risk.

Our Distance Learning Experience

I think everyone can agree that the winter of 2022-23 was full of sickness, sickness, and more sickness. This was unfortunately all too true for our family as well, even more since we moved to a new city this year. New cities and new schools mean new germs and lots of sicknesses!

From Labor day until Christmas, we were getting hit with one big thing after the next with no breaks in between. Our immune systems needed a break! Desperately! How many more doctors and hospital visits could we realistically take on before we needed to draw the line?

Over Christmas break, we spent a lot of time discussing with our doctor and with each other the best steps moving forward, and ultimately what we knew was best would be pulling my oldest from kindergarten and homeschooling for a time.

It was not a decision we took lightly. This would be a huge decision that could have an effect on her for quite a while.

On Tuesday morning after Christmas break was over and everyone went back to school, we spent the day on the phone with her teacher, principal, and superintendent. Ultimately, the biggest question was, “Is this temporary, or for the rest of the school year?”

With our specific situation, it needed to be temporary. She is not the type of child that would thrive in a homeschooled situation because her social needs are more than I can ever provide her while homeschooling.

Because we chose to make this temporary, we needed to figure out the best way to move forward, whether we would unenroll her from school and then re-enroll when she came back, or how we would handle it.

But we ended up being very fortunate that as a result of the 2020 Covid shutdowns, distance learning is still an option, but this is the last year they are allowing it in our district. So a distance learner she became!

When schools shut down in 2020, I, fortunately, did not have a child old enough to be in school and did not have to take on the burden of distance learning. However, we’re getting the full effect now! We now have packets of papers to do with her, books to read, activities to work on, and more.

It’s been fun to have her home each day and it’s been fun to hone in on my inner teaching skills to help her understand new concepts. I’ve loved being more involved with her learning to read and we’ve adapted a lot of the worksheets to be more hands-on and interactive, which I know is a huge privilege we have while doing work one-on-one instead of in a classroom of 25 students.

But at the end of the day, she is one of the most extroverted humans I know (okay maybe she’s second to me), and a public school situation is somewhere she thrives, there’s no denying it. Even her teacher and her principal would agree!

We have loved this learning experience of having her home, but we’re still counting down the days until she gets to go back and spend the day at school with all of her friends and various teachers that help in the school.

February 3, 2023February 3, 2023

So What Do We Say If We Can’t Say Be Careful?

When supervising risky play, it’s important to avoid saying “be careful.” I know, I know. This is hard to do, it’s a phrase deeply ingrained in our brains. I’m still working on it myself! Looking through the child’s lens, hearing “be careful” is such an empty saying. Be careful with what? How? Where? When?

The question I ask myself when I’m tempted to turn to the same phrase is instead, “Do they need advice or do they need awareness?”

Awareness: When I can see a bigger picture they maybe can’t or haven’t realized yet.

Example: 3 year old climbing an apple tree, but doesn’t know that one of the branches is dead and not as sturdy as the rest of the tree branches.

Situation 1: I call over- “Be careful!” The child grabs the branch, the branch breaks, the child falls out of the tree. I’m frustrated because I told him to be careful, he’s frustrated because he’s still not sure why he fell out of the tree.

Situation 2: I move slightly closer and point out things he can make himself aware of. “Look at the branch you are sitting on, it’s so full of leaves and so strong! Is that next branch up also full of leaves? How does it feel when you grab it?” Child reluctantly grabs the branch, realizes it’s dead and not sturdy, then finds a new path to climb.

Advice: The child is attempting a task for the first time and needs advice on how to find success.

Example: A child walking along a fallen log to cross a slow, shallow river for the first time.

Situation 1: I call over, “Be careful!” Child gets the footing wrong, falls into the water, and everyone is upset.

Situation 2: I step closer and offer advice and coaching on how to help my child across the log so they can still perform independently and have this learning opportunity, but by adding in the coaching I just took the task from dangerous to risky.

It’s a tricky mind shift and it takes a lot of practice, I know this from experience! However, choosing your words carefully when engaging children in risky play will turn out to become a huge benefit in the long run.

Here are some other phrases that can help you make this conversation shift:

Awareness:

“Do you notice how….”
“How is your body feeling?”
“Is this stable or wobbly?
“If you look up, do you see what I’m seeing?”
“What’s your plan?”
“How do you want to accomplish this?”

Advice:

“When I do this activity I like to…”
“You might want to try…”
“When using this tool, a good safety feature we need to know is…”
“The rules for using xyz include…”

Now please do not get me wrong, if your child is in immediate danger, please take all necessary steps to keep them safe. But risky play is needed developmentally and is so good for the child in the long run. It’s forever a balance between risky and dangerous play! However, I can promise you that calling out, “Be careful!” will not make the activity any less dangerous.

What phrases do you use with your child instead of “Be careful?”

Cover photo by Mallory Wilcox

February 1, 2023February 1, 2023

Education for Nearby Animal Shelters- How This Teen is Working to Improve Her Community

In a Virginia neighborhood, a high school student identified an issue that she felt was something she could help with- stray cats. She has come up with plans on how she can build traction and resources with the local animal shelter, despite the long drive from her neighborhood to the shelter. She writes,

“The nearest animal shelter is around 30 minutes away from us and doesn’t get much recognition in our neighborhood. This leads to people being uneducated about the places they can take any stray animals they find or places they can donate to in order to help rescued animals.”

“I want to help spread awareness about nearby animal shelters by printing out information about them and doing the same thing – leaving posters or hand-delivering them. I also want to run a food drive where people can drop off pet food and animal supplies at my house and I drop them off at the local animal shelter. By doing this, others wouldn’t be troubled by having to drive a somewhat far distance for something that may not be relevant to them. To do this, I would have to make people aware of it by including the food-drive information on the posters I leave about the animal shelters.”

“I also have seen a lot of stray cats around the neighborhood, and I think that if people were more aware of the shelters nearby then these animals would be able to be protected by being brought there. As far as short-term, people being more aware of the animal shelters around us, they would be able to bring supplies to my food drive and help many homeless animals. In the long term, people knowing about these shelters could help in the case they ever stumble across a stray animal who needs to be rescued.”

As we hear more about her story, we will post updates. Stay tuned to hear more!