So my daughter is napping right now. When I saw that she was tired, I asked if she wanted to go upstairs where her room is. She immediately walked to the stairs and started tugging at the baby gate.
Now we have a baby gate on the stairs because our first floor is as close to 100% child proof as reasonably possible. I feel perfectly comfortable when she walks into another room that I don’t need to pursue, just keep an ear out for sounds I can’t identify. of course there is a gate on the stairs because stairs are dangerous. When you look at stuff that offs little kids you see things like drowning (this house HAD a pool…I dismantled it and disposed of it) auto accidents (LaWeer’da has a VERY expensive car seat that I have become proficient in, but this one effects us all), poisoning (chemicals are all locked up, which is a pain in the ass when there is a mess, but it beats the alternative) and falls. A tumble down the stairs can easily kill a baby pretty easily…especially when it’s an old house with 12 foot ceilings.
Still what do I do when she tugs at the gate. I open it up, and let her start climbing with me right behind watching closely. In the beginning up came VERY naturally, as she just wants to climb them on all fours and so far there have been NO scares or bumps going up. Down took a bit more effort. She saw us going down standing up, and decided that even tho her legs are shorter than the risers she could do that. I’ve even let her take that last step on her own because a short fall onto a nice wool rug is a better teacher for this stubborn little girl than me constantly telling her she’d be better off sitting down and scooting.
The lesson was learned, and now she’s REALLY good at stairs. This doesn’t mean I don’t let her climb stairs unsupervised, and it doesn’t mean the gates don’t get closed once we change levels. Still when we’re at homes without small children and child-proofing, I’m not HORRIFIED of her getting past up to a short set of steps.
She knows to respect stairs, and knows how to properly handle them. That’s better, in my mind, than pure avoidance.
This will be performed at every development step in her life. I already have one of these as well as a few simple live-steel knives for her when she’s old enough to understand how knives work, and like me as a child she’ll eventually probably have a knife or two tucked away in her things to play with when she wants to. I remember being elementary school age, and having in a toy bin a few small pen knives and Swiss-army knives, and taking them into the woods and whittling away at a stick or cutting up various things I found. I probably also cut myself with it, tho I can’t remember, I do remember cutting myself with scissors at a very young age when learning how to use them.
See I can block off my stairs, and keep my knives out of her reach very easily because she’s still very small. Somebody is always with her now, but that isn’t forever. Eventually she’ll be old enough to be able to handle true freedom, or go over to other kids houses where the preparations might not be as complete (or be ideal for THAT child, but not mine).
I see exposure as the best form of safety, while it seems that “Progressives” see restriction as the best way. I think that’s unrealistic.
I agree wholeheartedly. The world is a very large and often dangerous place. Plus, as an added bonus, you’ll have a child who has learned how to deal with problems, as opposed to a whining brat who simply cries for help at every turn throughout her life.
Why does this concept seem so hard for some people to understand?