How Do I Know When to Let My Kid Take Risks?

Emily,

I’m not sure if you’ve covered anything like this, but I find myself often in a conundrum around what to forbid or not when it comes to my kiddo and taking physical risks. For example, if she wants to walk along a high cement wall, or hang off of precarious things, or get right at the edge of a cliff, etc. – I have distinct memories of taking some pretty extreme risks as a kid, and if my parents forbade it, mostly that just meant I did it alone rather than with supervision (which seems worse). I am often trying to gauge things like how likely is it that she’ll fall and be hurt, how badly will she be hurt if she is, etc. and I feel like I’m estimating all of those things entirely based on a gut reaction. This seems wrong, especially since my gut reaction and my husband’s gut reaction are on wildly opposite ends of the spectrum much of the time. Are there accident-related stats somewhere I should be referencing instead?

Thanks in advance!
—Overly or Under-ly Cautious?

For me, this really bleeds into a broader question about how much protection we provide our kids and how much supervision, even as they age. I remember as a kid running around our neighborhood with the other kids, playing in the parking lot down the street, climbing up to various people’s roofs, and so on. I cannot imagine that happening now. (Free Range Kids has an interesting perspective on this).

But you asked a much more specific question, which is: are there accident-related stats somewhere. Answer is yes. The CDC has some data here on causes of ER visits. It’s not super granular, so you cannot learn that (for example) trampolines are really dangerous (they are!). But I guess I’d take away a few things. For fatal injuries in kids, the vast majority are a result of car accidents (mostly occupants, some pedestrians).

For non-fatal injuries, it’s a lot of falls and being struck by something (probably also cars a lot of the time). The chance of a 1 to 4 year old going to the ER for a fall in a given year is about 5% (this is the highest risk group). This seems scary, I think, but most of these are treat and release and the child is fine.

In a sense, probably you and your husband are both “right”. If you let your kid walk on a concrete wall there is a chance they will fall and hit their teeth and you’ll have to take them to the ER (yes, this did happen to my kid). On the other hand, walking on a wall is fun. And the biggest serious risk is one you take every day (probably) by putting your kid in the car.