Excessively protecting children from risks, often only hypothetical, is counterproductive. In this way, the acquisition of child’s skills and skills is hindered, and influences the ability to perceive dangers when they present themselves
If we reflect on the evolution of our approach to children’s games, it is difficult to believe how much our habits have changed in just a generation. Behaviors that in the 70s would appear as paranoid, today are normal: Until a few decades ago, no parent would have passed through the head to accompany their children to the door of schoolor to prevent them from playing in a lawn, just as nobody would have imagined to spread artificial rugs in the playing area of a park or to stuff every object: today these attitudes represent a confirmation of the attention of a good parent.
The risks of excessive protection
The reason for what is happening, which has determined and determines changes in our perception of childhood, must be sought in theincorrect idea that children must be protected by any risk of getting hurteven a minimum. But if it is true that avoiding dangers is a conscientious and necessary action, an exasperated vision of the child as being extremely fragile and with such a little developed intelligence that it does not allow him to be able to correctly evaluate the situations of potential risk, it is symptomatic of a society in which the sense of real has been lost (so much so as to create, for example, the so -called “Guinzaglio for children”).
The current world is, unfortunately, full of risks, not only physical, and in the exasperated attempt to protect our children from any eventuality we do not realize that we are preventing them for a healthy development. The risk is to grow increasingly fragile generationshowever, wondering what they lost and what our children have gained from our tendency to hyperprotection, helps to rediscover the necessary sense of reality, perhaps common sense, essential in a hostile society to risk, to rediscover those experiences that should not be missing in the life of a child.
The standardization of the game spaces
The game spaces that today’s childhood has available are absolutely flat surfaces, without any roughness, with structures that, albeit of appearance, shapes, different colors, re -propose the same possibilities of movement, with measures standardized by a legislation that makes them almost identical. We should therefore imagine expanding the margins of freedom of our children againto allow them to rediscover experiences and game methods that, putting specific skills in the field, training body and mind and prepare them to the real world, where not everything is muffled.
As Paolo Mai in the volume observed Smart subjects“If we really want to guarantee the safety of the child, the worst path is precisely to eliminate any risk situation in his life. A child who lives in a flat surface, with all the rounded corners, who tramples only accident prevention surfaces, most likely will be hurt as soon as he is out of these contexts. (…) Why don’t we trust them instead? Why don’t we allow them to acquire those motor and emotional skills and skills that will be the true and only antidote against getting really bad? ».
Protect from risks without limiting experiences
What is going on in our society? Because the cry “Be careful!” Is it the most frequent automatic reaction that starts when we see children or teenagers who perform actions, sometimes even very simple, but who are immediately perceived as dangerous?
It is true, sometimes they can also exist for reasons to alarmed, but if there is no real danger, this warning can become counterproductive, because if it is repeated incessantly it loses its value, while We should reflect on the real weight that we give to our perception of dangerconsidering an approach to security that knows how to balance the benefits of the experiences that we allow children.
In nature, game activities include sometimes risky experiences: it is an important aspect of growth that manifests itself among all mammals. Taking risks in the game is functional behavior from an evolutionary point of viewbecause it promotes physical and mental development, both in animals and in the little ones of humans; The real risk, avoiding children any possibility of damage to protect them, is that the important stimuli for their growth are excessively limited.
The natural environment is the best gym
It is necessary to give confidence to our children, their skills, and to recognize them a fundamental right: that of being able to play freely, in spaces where it is possible to test themselves. Playing outdoors, even in somewhat wild environments, should be an essential component of the prevention actions that we implement. Sensory wealth, the wide range of skills that are made into play in a natural space do not have comparisons: there is no structure, gym or designed game that can be compared to the design that nature puts in the field. The natural environments are interesting and engaging, the playful component always support that of learning, surround fantasy and color children by stimulating their imaginative ability, they are rich in creative ideas and, through psychological and physical challenges, help children develop balance, coordination and motor skills.
The natural environment is therefore the best gym that can be offered to children: stimulates the senses and proposes continuous challenges that promote the ability to adapt, giving the child growing the possibility of building a complete baggage of skills. Being exposed to a multiplicity of sensations and receiving continuous stresses to adaptation undoubtedly leads to building a more “trained” and complex neuronal system and, consequently, lays the foundations for the greater chances of success.
Balance risks and benefits
On the other hand, spending time in standardized environments, characterized by the poverty of stimuli, leads the individual to a progressive slowdown in the development process, and determines an ever less need for progression which, as an essential element for growth, becomes a secondary element. It is the imbalance that leads the individual to seek solutions to solve a problemthus generating progress, while, on the contrary, a situation of calm and liabilities does not invite the “evolutionary tension”.
The thought that guides our educational actions should be that of a “balanced risk approach” Which, in daily practices, leads to preparing game spaces and imagining proposals that balances safety with other beneficial effects, offering children possibilities that they positively affect their health.
The aim should no longer be to completely eliminate any risk eventuality, but that of make correct assessments between risks and benefits. It is good to allow complex game activities, offer varieties of environments, make accessible opportunities for challenge of one’s skills and experimentation of the skills acquired, concentrating our attention to adults on the evaluation of the real dangers, without excluding a priori the possibility of experimenting in the name of “could happen that …”.
The educational component of the risk
In order for this to happen, it must also be realized that Not all situations are a source of true dangerescaping the possibilities of control up to leading to irreparable damage: most of the game opportunities in which children experience themselves are nothing more than actions that involve a certain dose of gamble, which can however be calculated and counted in the forecasts.
Because if children are prone to playing in a risky way, they are also very good at estimating their skills and avoiding risks that are not ready to run, physically or emotionally.
In the choices that we adults do for them it is necessary not to be commanded by fear, aware of the evolutionary importance of risk and its educational component, since will prepare the child to perceive and contain the danger when he really needs it.
Growing children capable of getting away on their own even in difficult situations, we will have future teenagers capable of facing the world alone; We cannot think we are always at their side to pave the way from any obstacles, supervising their steps for an unlimited time, building around their armor that protect them: we can however work to give them the right tools to measure themselves with the complexity of tomorrow’s world.
