Children Need Healthy Risk-Taking
It can be a challenge for many parents to let go.
Especially in our age of “helicopter parenting”, media reports of dangers lurking for your child around every corner, it can be easy for parents to imagine untold mayhem everywhere if you let your child out of your sight. We want to protect our children and want the best for them.
However, for children, and especially teens and older pre-teens, they need to develop their sense of independence and need to grow by having us parents let go…

Here’s a good article and podcast by sociologist Christine Carter describing the need for teens to have opportunities to challenge themselves (by themselves) in order to thrive. Instead of trying to shelter and protect them at all costs from experiencing stuff on their own, we need to steer them toward healthy risks.
That’s part of what we try to do at our multicultural summer camp for girls-only and for boys-only–empowering youth by encouraging and providing opportunities for healthy risk-taking.
What ideas do you have about encouraging healthy risks during home and community life?