My three-year-old son and I recently took a walk down our cookie cutter street to the cookie cutter park that he enjoys playing at. Upon arriving, we noticed five girls, roughly aged 10-13, playing all over the outside of the play equipment. I have seen firsthand lots of neighborhood parents disapprove of such reckless play, and either attempt to stop it, or not let their children engage, but I saw opportunity written all over it.
As my son approached, he abandoned his usual routine of heading right for the slide, and he stood and watched for several minutes. While he was watching them, I too was observing and learning the rules of the game they played. Unfamiliar to me at the time, they were playing grounders; one person is ‘it’ with their eyes closed and if you happen to be touching the ground when they say “Grounders”, you become ‘it’. As I watched them play I also watched my son follow their movements and study them, and then he set forth.
The girls were mindful and respectful of him and his space, often giving away their position in the game to help him. He started up the slides, climbing things he had never tried, attempting to mimic the girls. He proved successful on some and bailed out on a few others, while I took all this in from an arm’s length (and for me that’s a generous arm) not intervening unless he asked for help. A small boost here, or a hand hold there, he was challenging himself and learning crucial developmental skills.
One of my philosophies is ‘never put a child in a tree’. Sounds odd coming from someone that loves nature and being outside, however if you place a child in a tree, you deprive them of the opportunity to learn. If they can’t get up the tree, they also can’t get down. Instead, provide them will opportunities to be creative and find solutions to help them reach that goal. Parents and educators can be quick to prevent children from having these positive exchanges with risky play. Strange having positive and risk in the same sentence? Children need to be seen as more confident and capable then most adults give them credit for, and we need to let them climb and explore so they know what it feels like to fall -hopefully not too far down though.
Even in our cookie cutter parks, children can be creative and take positive risks – we can’t just give them a little rope to go out on, they need the whole thing to reach their desired height. Let them climb. Let them fall. Let them grow.
Play. challenge. grow 