SAFETY AND RISK 49 Beginnings Workshop EXCHANGEreally risk loss of life or limb, but more often than...

■zero risk, zero gain: Tom Sawyer, won’t you please come home? by Michael Gramling

■what’s the risk of no risk? by Deb Curtis

■danger, danger everywhere! helping children feel safe in a culture of fear by Diane E. Levin

■risk it! by Claire Warden

For reprint permission, contact Exchange, PO Box 3249, Redmond, WA 98073(800) 221-2864 • [email protected].

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SAFETYANDRISK 49 MARCH/APRIL 2010 EXCHANGEBeginnings Workshop

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Playgrounds used to be pretty scary places. See-saws (or teeter-totters) for example, were standard equipment on most playgrounds, and while children loved them, they were a caregiver’s nightmare. The see-saw, for those of you who have never had the pleasure, was a simple piece of equipment that employed the basic principle of the lever and the fulcrum to allow children who were willing to cooperate and to ‘play nice’ to take turns going up and down on its opposite ends. Children who did not play so nice though, soon discovered that it was a lot more fun to abruptly abandon the socially approved role of counterweight, leap off their safely-grounded end of the see-saw, and drop their partners on their bottoms with a teeth-rattling jolt. Also standard equipment was the merry-go-round, a piece of equipment that likewise required cooperative play in order to be properly enjoyed. Some children were riders, but to others fell the more important role of the pusher or spinner. How fast can we get this thing going? How many of the riders will beg for mercy and how loudly will they squeal? Or better yet, can we create a centrifugal force strong enough to break the desperate grip of the squealing child and send him hurtling off the equipment and into the dust?

While see-saws and merry-go-rounds have reached the brink of extinction, the common swing is now also seeking protection as an endangered species. Like its prehistoric cousins, the swing is unpopular both for the demands it places for adult supervision and its potential for abuse. Daredevils want to be pushed higher and higher. Worse yet, these same (reckless) risk-takers want to let go at the very zenith of the swing’s arc and leap into space with neither net nor parachute to break their fall. Other children -— innocent bystanders — risk life and limb when they inadvertently wander into the danger zone.

Playground safety — and classroom safety for that matter — have come a long way. Gone are the asphalt and concrete surfaces that once greeted children to teach them about gravity through direct experience. Splinters, bolts, protruding nails, rusting metal, and sharp corners have been nearly eradicated from the preschool environment thanks to stricter safety standards and conscientious caregivers. And for this, those of us who entrust our children to the kindness of strangers are forever grateful.

See-saws and merry-go-rounds were probably bad ideas — contraptions that well-intentioned adults thought might be fun for children. These were adults who either did not consider the bumps and bruises that might ensue or who, incredibly, might even have believed the potential benefit might outweigh the occasional childhood mishap. Maybe they focused on what it meant for the child who, after landing squalling in the dust, climbed right back on the merry-go-round for the sheer thrill of it, determined to hold on even tighter this time. Or maybe they envisioned

Michael Gramling, Human Development Specialist and lifelong social justice advocate, found his professional home in 1979 when he discovered Head Start and embraced its values and its goals — particu-larly those of enhancing the dignity of families living in poverty and of supporting parents as the primary educators of their children. The body of work he has produced since then reflects his values, his academic training (M.A. in Human Development, Pacific Oaks College), and his real-life experiences as a Head Start parent, teacher, and manager.

In his current position as Human Development Specialist at T/TAS, Michael crisscrosses the country working with professionals in the field to develop more respon-sive approaches to the individual needs of children (particularly those of children who fail to thrive in typical early childhood environments) and more targeted in their support of parents and their decisive role in the success of their children. Michael is the primary author of the national 2003 Head Start Family Literacy Project training as well as the T/TAS publications Positive Approaches to Supervision, and Positive Guidance: Making A Place for Everyone. Most recently, he was honored to be a contributing author to the 2006 Zero to Three publication Learning to Read the World. With his wife and colleague, Teresa Christmas, he home schools his two youngest children, Magnolia and Amelia, (now in their teens) and welcomes their company on his travels and their assis-tance at his training sessions.

zero risk, zero gain:Tom Sawyer, won’t you please come home?byMichaelGramling

Reprinted with permission from Exchange magazine.Visit us at www.ChildCareExchange.com or call (800) 221-2864.Multiple use copy agreement available for educators by request.

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the child being dumped unceremoniously on his bottom by his unfaithful see-saw partner who nevertheless returns to the playground the next day, and in an astounding leap of faith, like Charlie Brown, climbs back in the saddle across from the very same partner.

Bad ideas, for sure, these clumsy relics of a bygone era, but it is the rapidly accelerating disappearance of the swing from the early childhood landscape that truly gives one pause. Securely anchored though they may be, equipped with seats engineered to guarantee that the child cannot in fact leap into the stratosphere, these beautiful monuments to freedom of spirit and escape from gravity have nevertheless fallen victim to fear and inconvenience: Fear that another child may indeed stray into the flight path and inconvenient for that extra degree of supervision such a possibility demands and inconvenient because children need to be lifted in and out and then pushed the entire time. What a pain!

Isn’t it interesting, though, that adults who believe that it is perfectly appropriate, even necessary, to teach preschool children about ‘pedestrian safety’ — as if the four-year-old child is responsible for looking both ways and making sure she is not run over by a car — believes that a swing is so dangerous that children cannot be taught to stay out of the way? Actually, any time that adults teach children about the dangers of this world as if they expect the child to do something about it, we create fear, not safety. When real danger is the subject of our lesson, children need one safety rule and one rule only:

“Don’t worry about a thing.We’ll take care of you.”

Speeding vehicles, pedophiles, and weapons of mass destruction all fall under these categories, but swings do not. Like the simple classroom safety rule “Walk,” a swing rule that physically and visually delineates a space where children not swinging must “Keep Out” would provide sufficient safety. And like the classroom walking rule, the “Keep Out” rule will occasionally be ignored by runners and daydreamers alike. Alert adults will remind children of the danger such actions pose, and once in a while, a child will nevertheless run into a doorknob or step in front of an oncoming swing.

All of which raises an interesting question. Is there ever a point that the drive for zero risk takes something away from childhood that we can’t quantify, but that nevertheless has value? It might be instructive, for example, to reflect for a moment on the images that the opening paragraphs evoked. When we pictured the not-so-nice child on the see-saw, or the child pushing classmates with reckless abandon on the merry-go-round, or the child begging to be pushed higher and higher on the swing, was it a little girl who came to our mind’s eye, or a boy? Chances are it was the latter. Whether it be the Y chromosome or early socialization (or a little of both), it is our preschool boys who tend to be the risk-takers and the troublemakers. Perhaps not coincidentally, it is also boys who are far more likely to be referred for mental health services (or expelled from programs) because of ‘inappropriate’ behavior. Do we owe boys an opportunity to be themselves? Would such opportunities help prevent them from being labeled as failures by age three and four?

Risk-taking has its down side for sure. It’s . . . well. . . risky. But with risk comes reward. What about that triumphant moment when the four-year-old child pumps his legs, pulls on the chains with all of his might, and discovers that he has the power to hurl himself through space at giddying speed with absolutely no assistance from his caregiver? What about the moment that the child overcomes her fear of small animals (and the teacher’s fear that it will bite) and pets the class guinea pig? Like the unfair comparison between the swing and the speeding vehicle, keeping a rodent is simply not on a par with keeping a snow leopard or an orangutan. And like the swing, it is more likely the inconvenience of keeping a pet, disguised as a concern for safety, that accounts for the paucity of animals (certified free of disease, of course) in our early childhood classrooms.

It’s a different world we live in; fear abounds. But what kind of world would we find ourselves in today if Tom Sawyer had heeded Aunt Polly’s admonitions and had not impressed Becky Thatcher with his extraordinary courage to balance on the rail fence? When the tolerance for risk is zero, children don’t really risk loss of life or limb, but more often than not, they risk losing valuable experiences with the world they inhabit.

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. . . any time

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about it, we

create fear,

not safety.

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The boys in this photo were engaged in a serious experiment. They were working together to figure out how to get the gray tub to slide straight down the roof of the house without tumbling over and bouncing off. Some of the boys climbed up to the top of the roof to balance the tub on a wooden plank. They tied a string to the tub and threw the string down to the boy at the bottom, who is pictured in the midst of trying out the experiment.

Study the story and photo above. If you were the adult on this playground and saw these four-, five- and six-year-old boys at play, what would your initial response be? Would you:

a) Stop them immediately because you think someone might get hurt?

b) Remind them of the rules about no climbing on the playhouse roof?

c) Ask them what interesting ideas they are up to and how you might help?

d) Other.

In the child care program where I worked for 10 years the staff had very different reactions to situations such as the one described here. A number of us were continually fearful that children would get hurt; others were concerned that if children didn’t learn to follow rules they would have a hard time following the rules when they got to public school. Some were worried about parent concerns and legal actions. And still others loved to join in and even help create the adven-turous ideas and risky activities that children regularly pursued.

For a long time we didn’t openly discuss our differenc-es and there was an undercurrent of tension among us. Of course, because all of us wanted to keep the children safe, usually the most fearful teachers ended up persuading us that we should enforce the rules.

Things started to change when a new director was hired for our program. She immediately picked up on the divisions among the staff and was determined to have us air our differences and come together as a team. She wanted us to think through our ideas and define some shared agreements about what we thought was important. Just stopping children’s risk- taking behavior and robotically following the rules were not options in her mind. She also advocated that children deserve and benefit from challenges and adventures that include risk. Their self-esteem grows, along with their physical and mental abilities as they negotiate risks appropriate for their personality and development. She wanted us to keep children safe, but insisted that it was just as important for us to guide them in becoming thoughtful decision-makers, able to one day assess and safely negotiate risky situations on their own. Her favorite saying was: “What risks do we take if we don’t help children to negotiate risks?” She also truly believed that all of the teachers’ perspec-tives were important to ensure children stay safe as well as help them develop and thrive. She led staff meetings where we:

n Discussed our life experiences and how they impact our reactions to these challenging situations with children.

n Talked about the children’s and families’ points of view and what they deserve from us.

n Reviewed the most current information from licens-ing and best practices for risk and safety in child care programs.

It was a long and sometimes bumpy process, but it re-ally helped us come to respect each others’ ideas.For example, in the situation above we agreed that

Deb Curtis has been working with infants and toddlers in a variety of settings for the last four years. She is co-author with Margie Carter of several books including: Designs for Living and Learning (Redleaf Press, 2003). She and Margie have been leadingprofessional development institutes to help teachers study reflective practices using a Thinking Lens.

what’s the risk of no risk?byDebCurtis

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We all have

different

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challenging

situations and

what we

perceive as

too risky.


the children were capable of climbing the play house and negotiating this experiment, but the area wasn’t designed as a fall zone so it wasn’t a safe situation to let happen without adult supervision. We came to an agreement that for this particular situation we would support the children’s valuable collaboration and experimentation by making sure an adult was there to supervise the climbing and to ensure that the area below was clear and safe. The children had a great celebration and new feelings of camaraderie within the group when the experiment was successful.

By studying situations in this way, our staff came to value the children’s ideas and competence. We listened to each other and worked together to make sure activities were safe, while still encouraging rich learning opportunities for the children. The following outlines the elements that I’ve discovered help with this process.

Know your disposition toward risk

We all have different reactions to challenging situa-tions and what we perceive as too risky. It is important for early childhood professionals to examine our views of these situations and make distinctions between our personal feelings and experiences, our coworkers’ points of view, and children’s strong desire for au-tonomy and competence. There isn’t one right answer in these situations. Some of us may be too fearful and keep children from the opportunities they deserve and are capable of, while others of us encourage or allow risky situations that may not be safe for all children. It takes acknowledging our own disposition and working together with our colleagues to ensure children are safe as well as appropriately challenged.

Ensure your own comfort and engagement Teachers should be able to feel comfortable and engaged with what goes on in their work environment. Being asked to supervise activities that are outside our comfort zone isn’t useful for us or the children. Also, having to stifle our excitement about offering new challenges for children creates a tense work environment. If we are feeling nervous or resentful about something that is going on, we should be able to acknowledge our disposition and need for support so our feelings don’t negatively impact the children and each other. In the child care program described above, we successfully negotiated a situation like this to support everyone’s comfort level and help children

take appropriate risks for their skill and develop-ment.

Several of the older children in the program were eager and able to climb the smaller trees in our yard. A number of the teachers were very fearful of this and others really thought it was something that these children deserved to have as a part of their childhood, just like they did when they were young. We decided that to keep the activity safe, the children needed supervision and guidance when they were climbing the trees. So we agreed that the children had to be able to climb the tree on their own, a teacher would be right there to supervise, but no teachers could lift children up. Also, if children wanted to climb a tree they had to alert one of the ‘tree-climbing’ teachers (those who were enthusiastic about supervising and able to support and keep the activity safe). If none of those teachers were available, then children had to wait until they were. The children easily accommo-dated to these rules and came to respect all of the teachers’ points of view.

Examine your view of children Oftentimes we react from our own fears and stop children from negotiating a new challenge without

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using caution

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taking into account their skills, competence, and determination. When I first began working with toddlers, I often stopped them from doing things I thought were too risky. Unconsciously I saw them as fragile babies, not really aware or capable of negoti-ating the world around them or the situations they got themselves into. This photo of Shaelyn finding a way to reach the bar reflects one of the situations where I had this view. The playground was not designed for my 18-24-month-old group. Some of the equipment was too tall or too big for their smaller bodies and strength. This didn’t stop the children. They regularly wanted to try out the equipment, finding ways to accommodate the challenges.

The strategy the children discovered for getting up to the bar was to move a chair underneath it, so they could climb up and suspend them-selves above the ground. I immediately stopped the children from doing this and moved the chairs back to the table where they belonged. I noticed that I was stopping this chair-climbing many times a day, so one morning I decided to stay close to intervene if necessary, while observing and assessing Shaelyn as she negotiated this challenging task. It took her a great deal of effort to move the chair and careful coordina-tion of her body to get up on top of the chair and avoid bumping her head on the bar. The hardest and most exhilarating part for her was holding on to the bar and lifting up her feet. It took all of her strength as well as her courage. After a few seconds she let herself drop back to the chair and grinned from ear to ear with her accomplishment. Studying her body language, I could

see that she was quite capable of negotiating this chal-lenge and the determination on her face told me she knew it!

The more I spend my days with these very young people the more I have changed my view of them. I have discovered that the children usually pursue only the challenges that are within their abilities, using caution and remarkable problem-solving strategies. I have come to see that if I stay close to intervene if necessary, observe to get to know individual children’s

An engaging environment for toddlers can prevent accidents

A risk is

something that

is possible

to negotiate

and may be

appropriate

for particular

situations and

children.

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dispositions and skills, I can make sure I keep them safe while supporting their instinctive drive to chal-lenge themselves and gain new competence. There is great reward in watching the children’s unwavering determination and seeing their elated faces when they accomplish something they have worked so hard on.

Inform yourself and practice risk management

There are numerous resources in the early childhood profession as well as in the larger world to help us learn about risks and how to prevent serious acci-dents in our programs. Most of these resources make the distinction between a risk and a hazard. A risk is something that is possible to negotiate and may be appropriate for particular situations and children. A hazard is something that is inherently dangerous and needs to be remedied, such as a climbing structure with sharp edges or loose boards that could seriously injure children if they play on it.

There are also distinctions between risks and hazards that can result in serious injuries and even death, and those more common childhood accidents that cause bumps and bruises such as skinned knees and cuts and scratches from prickly bushes. When these common accidents occur, children benefit from know-ing that there are caring adults and other children to soothe their feelings and ease their pain with caring words and a colorful Band-Aid®. A useful resource for studying these distinctions is The Risk Pyramid in Margie Carter’s and my book Designs for Living and Learning (2003).

Engage families in conversations about challenge and risk

Families have strong feelings and concerns about their children’s safety, and rightly so. The director of our child care program believed in the importance of involving families in conversations and decisions along with the staff about everything, including the approach-es we developed for challenge and risk. She held meetings where families worked with staff to study children’s developmental tasks requiring challenge and risk. She formed a safety committee whose role was to help create policies and monitor the risk and safety issues in the program. Often staff and parent commit-tees formed to help think through the benefits, risks, and rules for new programs, activities, or equipment that might involve unfamiliar challenges and potential

risks for the children, such as installing a new outdoor climber.

Create an environment for safe and appropriate challenges The environment we provide for children is central to the work of offering children rich experiences while keeping them safe. We certainly must be vigilant about ensuring there are no hazards in order to prevent seri-ous accidents. But we can also go too far in ‘childproof-ing’ with the result being that children have nothing in-teresting or challenging to do so injuries are more likely to occur. This was true in the first program I worked in with infants and toddlers. On behalf of keeping the children safe, the teachers had literally stripped the environment of almost everything except the furniture and a few toys.

I immediately began to add significantly more inter-esting materials in the environment for the children to use. At first the teachers were worried, but after a few weeks one of them said to me, “We used to have at least one accident report a day and now we rarely have any.” Before, the only challenging activities in the environment for the children to do were to climb on the furniture or bump up against each other, so injuries occurred more often. Engaging the children’s minds and bodies by enriching the environment helped focus their energy and instinctive appetite for exploration and interactions which resulted in fewer falls and scuffles.

Remember, you are there When our concern for safety leads programs to elimi-nate anything that might be a challenge for children, we diminish the role of the teacher. I have heard this re-ferred to as ‘teacher-proofing’ the curriculum. It doesn’t matter who the teacher is or what she does, because there is a rule or prescribed way to do everything. I believe this leads to teachers taking a less active role in thinking through safety issues as well as supporting children’s learning.

I remind teachers that the children are not alone in the room. We are there, too! It is our job to supervise chil-dren’s safety as well as provide for their curious minds and active bodies. When I show teachers the unusual activities and materials I offer children they often say to me, “Won’t they break it?” “Won’t they put it in their mouth?” “Won’t they get hurt?” I always respond, “I’m right there doing this with them, so I won’t let them get


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A hazard is

something

that is

inherently

dangerous

and needs to

be remedied,

such as a

climbing

structure with

sharp edges

or loose

boards that

could

seriously

injure children

if they play

on it.

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hurt.” We should never offer children experiences that need supervision if we aren’t going to be there to sup-port their safety, as well as their learning processes. We must take steps and be respected as competent professionals who are responsible for the safety, care, and education of the children we work with.

Provide challenging alternatives Keeping children safe is paramount to the work we do every minute when we are with children. We must al-ways stop or prevent situations that threaten children’s well-being. But when we do intervene on behalf of children’s safety, we can do it with the understanding that life has many challenges and risks, and children deserve experiences and tools to learn to negotiate on their own. The saying, “With few risks there are few rewards” is very true. Learning involves risk. Relation-ships involve risk. Feeling competent and confident in the world requires meeting a challenge and working to overcome it.

When children are involved in a situation we think is too risky or dangerous, rather than just stopping them we can offer alternatives that keep them safe while preserving opportunities for them to develop to their fullest potential. This work requires that we pay attention to the children’s perspectives, use our power thoughtfully, and act responsibly. We can ensure that children have a childhood where they feel exhilaration, while still being protected and supported by adults and their friends. We can support them in learning that de-termination pays off, and they can become competent decision makers, able to assess risks, contribute to the well-being of others, and reap the rewards of their efforts.

Reference

Curtis, D., & Carter, M. (2003). Designs for living and learning: Transforming early childhood environments. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf Press.

Toddlers earnestly learn to use scissors. They won’t get hurt because the teacher is right there to supervise and coach them.

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Diane Levin is Profes-sor of Education at Wheelock College. She can be reached at [email protected].

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Not long ago my husband Gary was standing outside the restrooms at a mall. A lone, crying little boy of about three appeared in the hallway. Gary bent down to ask him if he needed help. The boy started wailing, “I want my Mommy, my Mommy!” Just as Gary began reassuring the boy that they would find his mommy, the boy’s mother came running down the hall. She grabbed her son’s hand, yelling that she was getting the police. Before Gary could explain, the woman stomped off with her now-whimpering child. He felt thrown off balance and sad. Had the world become such a dangerous place that a man helping a frightened child find his mother was a thing of the past?

A few months later, I attended an event at a ‘Travel-lers’ (often referred to as Gypsies) caravan community in Northern Ireland. A child about the same age as the child above was walking around anxiously calling, “Mommy, Mommy.” I bent down and offered to help him find his mommy. He tightly gripped one of my fingers as we went to a nearby community member to ask if she knew the boy’s mother. She said, “Yes, thanks. I’ll take him to her.” The boy wouldn’t let go of my finger, so the three of us went to the other side of the yard where his parents were found and they had a tearful, happy reunion.

The danger of strangers. What different lessons the two boys, both worried about finding their mothers, are learning! One is learning that the world is scary and that you can’t trust grown-ups (or at least men) to help you when you’re in need; the other, that you can rely on grown-ups to help keep you safe and meet your needs.

Will the first mother feel reassured when her son, at age 4 or 5 is taught a ‘Stranger Danger’ curriculum at child care like so many children in early childhood pro-grams and elementary schools are taught today? What will the Stranger Danger program mean to the children who are taught it? Consider this: A few days after it was

taught in one child care program, the children were walking to a neighborhood park with their teachers. A man walked up to a teacher asking for directions. One child burst into tears because the teacher was talking to a stranger! The Center for Missing and Exploited Chil-dren does not support the teaching of Stranger Danger programs to young children because “they are not ef-fective at keeping children safer” (McBride, 2009).

Dangers beyond strangers. But fear of strangers is not the only danger young children encounter these days. Soon after the United States went to war in Afghani-stan, five-year-old Harriet was in her family’s car near an airport. Just as a plane was flying loudly overhead, the car was in a minor accident with another car. Har-riet burst into tears, gasping, “That plane dropped a bomb on us!” Because she had heard about the war and the bombs, she had figured out that all planes must now carry bombs. And what about the six-year-old boy who violated his Delaware school’s Zero Tolerance Policy. He was so excited about joining the Cub Scouts that he brought to school his Cub Scout camping uten-sil that had a spoon and a knife. He was suspended and faced 45 days in the Delaware districts’ reform school (Urbina, 2009) for bringing a weapon to school. His moment of happiness turned into a nightmare of punishment and fear. (After much media coverage and public outrage, the conviction and punishment were ultimately lifted.)

I visited a kindergarten classroom near Boston recently. The school system had a new regulation: No food products could be brought into any classroom to share with others. To celebrate one child’s birthday without the usual food treat, the class decided to make a play-dough birthday cake for the birthday child and sing “Happy Birthday” to her at a class meeting. But then play-dough became off limits, too. This teacher also reported that in addition to the food ban, this was the first year in her 20 years of teaching kindergarten

danger, danger everywhere! helping childrenfeel safe in a culture of fear

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that she couldn’t have a pet because of fears about children’s possible allergies.

Finally, after all the recent discussion about the arrival of swine flu, I was at a shopping mall. A young child touched a vending machine asking her father to buy a treat. The father grabbed the child’s hand and said, “Don’t touch that. There are germs!”

Pretend or real?

Each time I see or hear about one of these dangers in children’s lives — whether they are legitimate or not — I ask myself, “Has there always been this level of fear? Naturally, adults want to keep children safe, but have children always been exposed to a world so full of dan-ger and have adults always reacted with the levels of anxiety and fear that we see above?” I do not think so.

This conclusion was supported when I recently as-signed the students in my course on children’s play at Wheelock College the task of interviewing a person over 50 years old about the play they engaged in when they were young. The last question was, “Do you see any changes between your play and the play of children today? Almost every respondent commented on the is-sue of safety being hugely different today. One grandfa-ther said,

“Today it seems that people are more fearful of their children encountering evil. Everything has to be planned and supervised for them. When I was young, I was on my own to figure out what to do with my friends both inside and out.”

And a mother said,

“In today’s society adult supervision is paramount. The world is viewed as an evil and dangerous place where children can be abducted, hurt, or God forbid, make a bad decision. This prevents them from engaging in free, unstructured, creative play where they make the rules and use their imaginations.”

The hazards of growing up in a ‘dangerous’ world

The four most important questions we must ask ourselves as we see the dangers that are piling up in children’s everyday lives and adults’ reactions to them are:

n What does it mean for young children to constantly see and hear that dangers are everywhere and to see the adults being fearful too?

n How do the dangers affect children’s ideas about the world and how it works, how they relate to other people and their ability to go out into the world as independent and capable individuals?

n How is parenting (and teaching) affected by ‘dangers everywhere’?

n What can we do to promote children’s optimal devel-opment and learning in today’s culture of fear?

Danger through a child’s eyes. Children use their experience to build an understanding of the world. But they do not just passively absorb information or ideas. When they encounter something new, they actively transform it into something with unique meaning, con-necting what they have learned from prior experiences to the new information. Not surprisingly, because they do not think in the same way adults do, young children often come up with unique and unpredictable conclu-sions from the dangers they hear about and experi-ence. And the conclusions they reach can deeply affect how they behave, how they feel, and what they learn.As we see in the example above of the girl who thinks all planes carry bombs because of what she has heard about the war, what children figure out can make the world seem like a dangerous place to them — a place where the adults in their lives are unable to protect them and where weapons and fighting are a regular part of keeping people safe. When children see adults reacting with fear, it further fuels their tendency to interpret the world as dangerous.

“Please Help Me, I’m Scared!” One of the most basic human needs in early childhood is to develop a sense of trust and safety in the world around them (Erikson, 1963). It is a necessary precondition for optimal social, emotional, and intellectual development and learn-ing to occur. Feeling safe allows children to put their energy into positive growth — into becoming autono-mous, competent, and caring people — who learn how to have a positive influence on their world rather than into trying to protect themselves from danger.

When children live in fear, this sense of safety and trust can be seriously undermined. Such children often:

n Put their energy into trying to keep themselves safe instead of into learning about and mastering their world.

n Lash out and use violence against others in order to try to protect themselves.

Children

use their

experience to

build an

understanding

of the world.

But they do

not just

passively

absorb

information

or ideas.

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Whether the

dangers are

real or not, it is

the job of the

adults who

care for

children to

keep them

safe.

n Develop a lens for interpreting experiences from the point of view of expecting danger.

Of course, all children are and always have been in en-vironments where there are some risks — and for some children there are more risks than others. But one of the highest priorities for adults who care for children must be to help children feel safe, even when there is danger (Levin, 2003). Research shows that the chil-dren who fare best when they are living in communities with serious danger are those who have adults to help them feel safe (for instance, see Garbarino et al., 1999). The stories above all illustrate how children are in situations that promote fear, not safety. And, many children are more likely to use violence and aggression themselves to keep themselves safe when they feel endangered and don’t think adults can do the job.

Through parents’ and providers’ eyes. Whether the dangers are real or not, it is the job of the adults who care for children to keep them safe. What does it do to adults’ ability to do their job well when they are told over and over about more and more dangers that their children face? It can:

n Weaken their attachment relationships with children as they focus their energy on identifying and prevent-ing dangers;

n Channel adults’ energy into protecting children from danger instead of optimizing their development and learning;

n Undermine adults’ vital role in helping children gradually become autonomous and competent individuals; and,

n Make the jobs of caring adults more stressful and complex.

What can we do? Safety, safety everywhere!

At the heart of efforts to meet children’s needs in the current fearful environment — no matter what the nature of the dangers that surround them might be — is helping them deeply experience through their daily routines what it means to feel safe. Since young children learn best from direct experience, we can do this in age-appropriate and meaningful ways by having children actually live by the “Safety Rule” (Levin, 2003). The “Safety Rule” provides a very powerful vehicle for counteracting much of the harm caused by a culture of fear.

The Safety Rule: “I Am Safe Here.”

n My body is safe: “No one will hit, kick, push, or hurt me.”

n My feelings are safe: “No one will laugh at me or make me feel like a failure.”

n My thoughts are safe: “I can express my feelings and opinions without being interrupted, ridiculed, or punished.”

n My work is safe: “No one will disrupt or damage the activities I work on.”

Implementing the Safety Rule can deeply affect how we work with children. For instance, when they have a disagreement and one child hits another or makes a mean and hurtful comment, the Safety Rule has us helping children discuss the conflict in terms of how what happened is not safe and then come up with ideas about what they can do to deal with the problem in ways that keep both children safe. The one rule to use when dealing with conflicts and discipline be-comes, “We need to find a way to solve our problems that keeps everybody safe.” This means that common approaches for dealing with children’s aggressive behavior, such as time-out, need to be rethought in light of the Safety Rule.

When children have experiences in or out of their group setting that produce fear and stress, the Safety

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Rule says adults will help the children find ways to work through the danger until their sense of safety and security return. This means we need to give children time and opportunities to restore a sense of safety. We can do this by providing opportunities for them to safely talk about and to use play and make pictures to work through the fear.

Finally, at the heart of implementing the Safety Rule is the trusting relationship that children develop with the adults who care for them. Children need to know that adults are there to keep them safe, so they can put their energy into learning about and mastering their world.

From danger, danger everywhere tofeeling safe

There are many benefits as children actually learn how to put the Safety Rule into action:

n They come to trust that it is the job of caring adults to keep them safe.

n They develop a whole set of skills for having a positive effect on others and their environment, thereby reducing their need for fear and aggression.

n They learn that the Safety Rule can actually help them find peaceful ways to solve their problems so the world begins to feel like a less dangerous place.

n Their energy is freed up to focus on learning and mastery instead of safety.

References

Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society. New York: W. W. Norton.

Garbarino, J., Dubrow, N., Kostelny, K., & Pardo, C. (1999). Children in danger: Coping with the effects of community violence. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Levin, D. E. (2008, September/October). Building peaceable classroom communities: Counteracting the impact of violence on young children. Exchange, 183, 57-60.

Levin, D. E. (2003). Teaching young children in violent times: Building a peaceable classroom (2nd Ed.). Cambridge, MA: Educators for Social Responsibility and Washington, DC: NAEYC.

McBride, N. (2009). Child safety is more than a slogan: “Stranger-Danger” warnings not effective at keeping kids safer. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Retrieved, October 14, 2009 from www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/NewsEventServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US&PageId=2349

Urbina, I. (2009, October 12). It’s a fork, It’s a spoon, It’s a . . . weapon? New York Times. Retrieved October 14, 2009 fromwww.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/education/12discipline.html?_=1&scp=1&sq=It’s%20a%20Fork,%20It’s%20a%20spoon&st=cse

Claire Warden is an educational consultant in experiential learning. As a lecturer in Primary Education at Strathclyde University, she developed training strategies and courses which have been applied to the work at her company, Mindstretch-ers. Founded in 1996, Mindstretchers embraces a project approach called ‘The Living Classroom,’ which explores learning in challenging outdoor spaces across Scotland, resources, and the publication of materials. Claire is the author of many books and materi-als and the founder of two outdoor nurseries in Scotland where children spend up to 90% time outside. The three spaces of inside, garden, and the wild wood are designed as part of a whole environment and is eco-friendly, down to fair trade resources, organic food, and alternative energy sources. Claire is the European education coordinator of the Nature Action Collaborative for Children, which brings together educators, landscape architects, environmentalists, and health workers to sup-port a multi-disciplinary approach to outdoor educational provision. She invites you to join the collaborative and take forward children’s rights to outdoor play around the world. Visit her at www.mindstretchers.co.uk.

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[Play in natural environments] fulfills basic childhood needs of freedom, adventure and risk-taking. Jim Greenman (1993)

Children in the Mindstretchers Nature Kindergartens in Perthshire, Scotland, are skilled at assessing risk. We all have different attitudes to risk and the adults in the Kindergartens take their lead from the children who have done their own risk assessments. What is an acceptable risk to one adult or child might not be acceptable to another. One practitioner might be very happy to allow children to jump two metres off a tree trunk while another might become anxious and prevent children from jumping a metre!

In the Nature Kindergartens we remove hazards that children do not see, so we remove deadwood from the tree canopy. But we do not remove challenges or risks that children do see and then choose to un-dertake. Children can choose to climb up a tree and determine for themselves how far they feel comfort-able climbing. If we remove all challenges, children lose the ability to risk assess. Our philosophy is to be risk-aware and not risk-averse and to employ a sense of perspective when assessing risks; whether they are real or perceived, they are everywhere!

Children in the centre are aware of the stinging nettles and their dangers, what they can be used for, and the remedy for getting stung as the following conversation demonstrates:

Jago (4): “Do you know what’s dangerous about nettles?”

Caitlin (4): “They sting you, you know.”

Donald (4): “You can make soup with nettles. You need to put a glove on to pick them.”

Caitlin: “Rub ourselves with a dock leaf.”

Positive outcomes for children

We feel that risk has a role to play in learning. And as research shows, it has the potential to achieve positive outcomes for children (Lewis, 2005; Nichol, 2000). Some of the learning outcomes are that children:

n Become strong stakeholders in their own develop-ment.

n Show an increase in confidence and competence.

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n Become independent and re-sponsible for their own actions.

n Develop coping mechanisms, problem-solving capabilities and transferable skills which also increases their self-esteem and self-belief.

n Develop a respect for danger, hazards, and experimentation.

We can add to these potential out-comes by looking at the woodland environment, a natural environ-ment that is characterised by instability. This demands alertness by any user, regardless of age.

A ‘progression of experiences’

Offering children a risk-rich envi-ronment allows adults to help keep children safe by letting them take more risks, whilst guiding them through a progression of experi-ences. If risks are managed con-structively during the play process, a “child’s desire to explore further” can be fueled (O’Brien & Murray, 2006). The best safety lies in learning through play how to deal with it rather than avoiding it.

In the Nature Kindergartens we offer and encourage risky play with adults there to scaffold the activity while the children gain confidence and become more competent both in risk assessing and in mastering the activity. When discussing the possible risks of climbing trees, Jacob (4) stated, “Only go as high as it doesn’t scare you,” while Francis (7) suggested, “If you can climb up a tree, you need to be able to get down. Only go up as far as you feel safe.” Practitioners are demonstrating their belief that children have the right to choose to engage in challenges and test their developing skills.

Children in the Nature Kindergartens have access to a wide range of real tools. Even children aged 2 years have free access to tools such as junior hacksaws, hammers, and loppers and are able to choose the tools they would like to use from a ‘Tree-Wrap’ sus-pended between the trees in the woods. Children

also help to build fires and light them using a flint, as we feel that children who have the manual dexterity to use the flint also have the maturity to light the fire. There are a number of policies and procedures in place to ensure that all staff have a knowledge of the safe use of tools and the lighting of fires.

Risk-benefit analysis

We feel that you should not make a judgment about risk without at the same time making a judgment about what benefits it might bring to children. For all the activities children need and want to undertake in our settings we do a benefit-risk analysis, a compari-son of the risk of a situation relative to its related benefits. As Adams and Thompson (2002), put it, “Risk management that pursues only the objective of

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If we remove

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getting it wrong will be oblivious to significant opportu-nity costs.”

Children seek challenge. In Denmark they refer to that ‘knot in the stomach’ feeling as ‘is i maven’ (which translates as ‘ice in the stomach’). This is seen as a positive emotion and one that both children and adults seek. Sandsester (2009) suggests that we “Keep the exhilaration bordering on the feeling of pure fear; but if pure fear occurs, the play ends with withdrawal.”

We believe that a benefit-risk assessment is not simply a technical matter, but needs to be a value-based exercise, which is dependent on the practitio-ner’s knowledge about children’s capacities, their resilience, and their ability to make judgments. They also need to understand the benefits of at least some accidents and that some things can only be learnt through experience.

Case Study:

The children at Auchlone Nature Kindergarten dis-covered a large fallen tree and eagerly explored it. A child scratched herself on one of the sharp branches

and the group decided that they needed to make the tree safe. They gathered to discuss the risks and sug-gested ways of making the tree a safer place to play on. Tools were selected and children worked together as a group using a variety of tools they had selected themselves. Some of the comments were:

“You can get bark in your eyes.”

“You might fall when the bark comes off; I need a metal hammer to break the loose bits.”

“I am getting all these bits off so children don’t get splinters.”

“This is a really sharp bit. Pass me the mallet so I can chop it off.”

“Is it safe to hold on? It is a bit wobbly.”

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The adult pointed out a hazard the children had not been aware of — a dead branch suspended in an-other tree above the space the children were working in! After a discussion, it was decided that the adult needed to climb up and tie a rope onto the branch. Then the children would work together to pull the dangerous branch off and away from the space. The children persevered at this task for nearly a week and at the end declared that they had created the best climbing frame ever! We agreed!

As Bundy (2009) concluded, “The real risk is . . . there is ‘no risk.’” Children need the challenges inherent in outdoor play and adults’ encouragement in this “risky” play.

References

Adams, J., & Thompson, M. (2002). Taking account of societal concerns about risk. London: HSE.

Bundy, A. C., Luckett, T., Tranter, P., Naughton, G., Wyver, S., Ragen, J., & Spies, G. (2009). The risk is that there is ‘no risk’: A simple, innovative interven-tion to increase children’s activity levels. International Journal of Early Years Education, 17(1), 33-45.

Greenman J. (2005). Caring spaces, Learning places: Children’s environments that work. Redmond, WA: Exchange Press. Nichols, G. (2000). Risk and adventure education. Journal of Risk Research, 3(2). O’Brien, E. A., & Murray, R. (2006). A marvellous opportunity for children to learn: A participatory evaluation of Forest School in England and Wales. Farnham: Forest Research. Sandseter, E. B. H. (2009). Characteristics of risky play. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 9(1), 3-21.

SAFETY AND RISK 49 Beginnings Workshop EXCHANGEreally risk loss of life or limb, but more often than...

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