"Be careful, you'll hurt yourself", "don't run", "go slowly", "don't touch": with how many prescriptions we try to
protect our children . But are we really sure that such prudence is justified, and not sometimes excessive or even counterproductive? This is what pedagogists seem to claim, agreeing that, in order to grow and acquire progressive skills,
the child needs to deal with the risk inherent in new experiences: a moderate risk, calculable and reasonable, yet indispensable.
INTENSIVE PARENTING
Unlike what happened just a few decades ago, today a parenting culture has established itself that tends
towards overprotection , the result of a society that loads mothers and fathers with increasing responsibilities, which only increase their sense of inadequacy and the fear of making a mistake. In the era
of intensive parenting (or paranoid parenting) , parents thus end up choosing the policy of risk reduction at all costs. And it is the paradox: in the risk society par excellence, children have fewer opportunities than ever to touch it with their hands and learn how to manage it. The first reason for what is happening must be sought
in the mistaken idea that children must be protected from any risk, even the slightest, of getting hurt. To achieve this goal, parents tend to limit their freedom too drastically, choosing
standardized play spaces for them, without thinking that this brings with it the impossibility of putting themselves to the test and the
loss of the physiological experience of risk during childhood.
THE PEDAGOGICAL DIMENSION OF RISK 
It is the opinion of experts that the current trend of overprotection is holding back children's development. To remedy the problem, we should allow them to
rediscover play experiences that put them in contact with the natural world and are able to train body and mind to encourage the acquisition of new motor and emotional skills. Letting children take risks while playing does not mean abandoning them to themselves but making a
responsible parental choice : the real risk, in fact, is eliminating a whole series of functional stimuli for their physical and mental development.
On the other hand, it is the children themselves who tell us: to grow up
they need to take risks , because this is part of the
normal learning process . By taking risks, the child experiences fun, the discovery of limits, comparison with others, a sense of responsibility and guilt.
And then it must be considered the fact that children are skilled in
estimating their own abilities , which protects them from dangers they are not able to face. The child can always fall while running, but until he tries to do so he will never perceive the pleasure of speed, the air whipping his face and hair.
We must therefore learn to
trust our children : this is the basis for a correct
risk education process, in which the adult always remains the point of reference. By removing every element of danger, even the slightest, perhaps we guarantee the child's immediate safety, but we do not teach him how to get away with it: to understand that elements of difficulty can always arise, in play as in life, but that it is also possible overcome them. An educational action based on a
balanced approach to risk will instead promote the right self-esteem and autonomy.
Taken from Born Mom | by Sara Lanfranchini
