The title is one of the few pieces of advice my mum gave me about child rearing. It came through pretty clearly in how she and my dad raised me — I’ve even got a tattoo about it, and how it’s not just about parenting but also my approach to security. I’m lucky that Reed and I are also well aligned on this front. Sometimes other parents are pretty aghast at how far away we let Locke get from us, how we let him do mildly dangerous things. Here’s our reasoning: the kid is going to have a bad time while learning, at some point (getting burned on something hot, getting separated from us, etc), so we may as well control as best we can the first time that happens. That’s different than how others approach it: using their control to prevent it happening, such that when it inevitably does happen, it’s when they’ve lost control, and then it can be truly bad.
Here are some examples of our approach.
The stairs he’s allowed to fall down
Our house is a split level, so while it’s two stories high, we have 4 sets of stairs. Some of them are quite steep. So Locke was going to fall down stairs at SOME point, and we wanted to decide which set of stairs that would happen on. Thankfully, we have two steps between two rooms in our house. Yes, it’s on hardwood, but it’s the shortest set we have. So when he was learning to crawl, we decided that was the set of stairs he was allowed to fall down. We did safety protocols around the other sets of stairs, but none around those. He fell down them. He cried. We comforted him. He is now incredibly confident around stairs.
How Locke got down stairs for most of his childhood, after falling down 2:
Getting lost
As Locke was learning to walk, we took him to the zoo a lot. There’s a lot going on there, and lots of space to explore. But it’s also pretty well contained, full of other parents, and there are protocols in place for lost kids. What a great place for him to get lost! The first time he wandered away on his own from Reed (I wasn’t there), Reed discretely followed him for awhile. Locke eventually realized he wasn’t near Reed anymore and didn’t know where he was. He had a whole Experience, which Reed let him have for a bit, and then went to him. There was a lot of validating feelings with “you couldn’t find me, and it was scary!” instead of focusing on Reed not being able to find Locke. Now Locke knows it’s on him to know where we are, and to stay as close as feels necessary.
Do we still keep tabs on him? Of course! But if he runs off for a bit, we have high confidence that he’ll return when he needs us.
Hot things are hot
No matter how many times you tell someone about how something might hurt them, usually folks have to experience it directly before really believing it (this is not just about kids). So while we tell Locke when something is hot or dangerous, we also still let him do things like pour hot water for his tea. Recently, he burned himself on the kettle while trying to handle it. Of course we comforted him about it and made sure it got the treatment the (very mild) burn needed, but we also didn’t fuss about it much more than that. He had learned a lesson by taking a risk he could afford.