Publish at May 19 2015 Updated November 11 2023
At school, as at home, adults naturally feel invested with a mission: to ensure that nothing untoward happens to the little ones in their care.
What starts out as an excellent intention can, however, turn out to be counter-productive, making our children fearful and unable to adapt to new situations.
For child psychiatrists, the dividing line between the two is when a child's development is hindered by constant adult intervention. Protecting a child means enabling him or her to apprehend the best solution in all circumstances. To do this, they need to be exposed to experience, to identify danger over time, to know how to assess it and to adapt their behavior.
Babies need to be closely accompanied by an adult, who can point out the dangers involved in different situations, without risking injury. As the child gets older, freedom and risks will increase, but constant progress will give him all the keys to finding his bearings, taking initiative and adapting to events.
Of course, parents will often be anxious about taking even the slightest risk, but they need to be aware that overprotecting their children only offers them a brief respite. In fact, overprotected children are more likely to find themselves at odds with their environment, because they won't be able to analyze it, even in their daily lives, in their studies...
In addition to the inability to establish a response strategy according to the situation, young people (even as they grow older) may suffer from a loss of self-esteem that will be detrimental to their development as well as to their psychological equilibrium. This is also true of shy children. Convinced that they can't succeed on their own, these children won't dare and will often settle for things (studies, sports...) without risk, within their reach from the outset, without setting themselves ambitious goals that could put them in difficulty.
Some will surround themselves with stronger, more gifted people (at least in their representations) who will serve as shields or enforcers, but few will attempt to act when the slightest doubt remains as to the outcome.
Indeed, the judgment will be without appeal: either it's a failure, or a success, but without nuance; it can't prioritize the risks and therefore considers that it's not capable of dealing with them. It's a downward spiral.
It's not an easy question, and one that many people have pondered. It's a particularly live issue in today's society, where the media is a particularly powerful echo of the horrors that sometimes occur in the world, heightening the anxiety of parents who don't want anything bad to happen to them if they don't keep an eye on them, not to mention the possible legal proceedings or judgment of others.
Lenore Skenazy explored this question in 2008, when she let her 9-year-old son roam New York alone. Having shared this experience with others, the young woman realized that her initiative was easily considered dangerous, even irresponsible, by most of her interlocutors. Yet she remembers that, in her day, it was commonplace. So, has the city become more dangerous than it was 20 or 30 years ago? No, there's more surveillance, more education and more means of communication.
Yet, in 2014, Hanna Rosin continues in this vein, noting that it's society as a whole that's working against a child's development. Overprotecting a child to avoid lawsuits, as is the case in the USA, leads to the major risk of the child lacking sufficient psychomotor maturity to avoid injury. Children have to fend for themselves and experiment in order to grow up.
Scratches to the knee or elbow are sometimes necessary to identify braking or landing zones to be avoided. The same applies to height: children don't know how to assess it when they're very young, so they have to try jumping before they know their limits and find their identity. What's more, in a world where digital technologies present so many potential dangers: image hijacking, addiction, poor communication, etc., locking children away so that they run no physical risk is not enough.
There are, of course, many places and ways to protect children: school and home are two obvious examples. The kitchen is a good example: from the butter knife to the sharp knife, when eating or cooking, children learn to handle sharp objects in stages, and the same applies to cooking utensils.
At school, psychomotricity and then PE are used to develop body control when jumping or balancing. Hanna Rosin suggests letting children experiment in suitable places, such as"The Land", a park that lets them play with tires, boards and other cans to build huts or play in the mud... In these parks, children are given a great deal of freedom, even though specialized activity leaders supervise from afar, ready to intervene at the slightest danger. These risks, taken in a controlled environment, certainly cause a little anxiety for parents, but above all they clearly enhance children's development, as they experiment and draw useful conclusions later on.
It also boosts self-confidence and self-esteem, as children feel proud of their achievements. Some of these playgrounds have been operating in France since the 1970s. While some of the oldest have disappeared, such as the Petits Pierrots field, others have recently sprung up in different locations, such as the Base in Belleville, where children have the time of their lives while parents learn to let go. Accidents are no more frequent here than elsewhere, so parents and children end up having a great time together.
Protecting your child is above all about enabling him to grow up in real-life conditions, not in a sanitized, padded environment. The confidence they build up will determine their ability to face life as a teenager and then as an adult, full of potential dangers.
Illustration: Stone36 - ShutterStock
References
The Overprotected Kid - Hamma Rosin - The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/03/hey-parents-leave-those-kids-alone/358631/
Adapting young people to higher education - New pedagogies: helping them adapt or marginalizing them? Rébecca Shankland- Yhèse .pdf
http://ecole-steiner-colmar.chez-alice.fr/Bulletins_files/these-shankland.pdf
Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone - Leonore Skenazy - Bew York Sun
http://www.nysun.com/opinion/why-i-let-my-9-year-old-ride-subway-alone/73976/
When we overprotect our children - Canal Vie
http://www.canalvie.com/famille/education-et-comportement/articles-education-et-comportement/quand-on-surprotege-trop-nos-enfants-1.1013093
Can a Playground Be Too Safe? - New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/science/19tierney.html?_r=1
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