Let kids be kids
Pushy parents who micromanage their children’s lives and the pervasive “safeguarding” culture are stifling young people’s creativity, a bestselling children’s author says.
Nervous mothers and fathers are passing their “infectious” and unfounded anxieties about safety on to their children, according to Lauren Child. Children’s ability to take risks is also being eroded by social media, which makes them feel under constant scrutiny, she said.
“We have got very hooked into that mentality of safeguarding and keeping people safe as possible,” Child said. “But life is about risk taking. You can’t live without taking risks. Everything is a risk, walking out of your front door is a risk. But we have to live our lives.”
Child, creator of the Charlie and Lola series for preschoolers and the Ruby Redfort detective novels for older readers, spoke of the dangers of parents “transferring ” their angst on to their children.
“I am very aware of the mood of people being wary of things a lot, and I think that is quite infectious,” she said. “That fear that something bad is going to happen, and children pick up on that. The most likely terrible thing is to get struck by car, that is the biggest risk for children, actually, and yet we are worrying about things that are very unlikely to happen.”
Child also criticized the tendency of parents to micromanage their children’s lives, which is another dampener on ability to experiment.
“I think there’s a danger of micromanaging everything and only doing things if they are worth doing,” she said. “So worth doing means if you are going to be any good at it, or if it will get you into a certain school or university. Looking at the end result is a mistake. We can’t possibly discover who we are if we are always thinking about the end, rather than just doing it.”Child added that another reason why youngsters are shying away from risk-taking is the constant glare of social media.
“Children feel so judged because we are assessed all the time,” she said. “People are looking over our shoulders all the time, whether it’s on the internet through social media or in the classroom, we feel very observed. It is very difficult to try things without worrying about failure.”