Author’s practical guidance
Climbing higher than you can comfortably watch
Source named in the book: risky play research (Sandseter)
Research on children's risky play keeps finding the same inconvenient thing: height, speed and rough-and-tumble are how children calibrate their own bodies, and children who are stopped early are not safer later.
Say this now
“I'm right here. Look where your feet are going.”
Presence plus a task. Neither of them is a warning.
“That branch is thin — try the thick one by your knee.”
Specific and actionable. "Be careful" is neither.
Do this
- Move underneath quietly instead of calling out.
- Say what you see, not what you fear: "Two hands on" beats "You'll fall."
- Let them get down themselves, slowly, however long it takes.
- Draw the line at the surface, not the height — concrete and water change the math.
- Handle your own reaction after, out of earshot. It is real and it is not theirs to carry.
Avoid this
- "Careful!" shouted from below. Startles at the exact moment balance is needed.
- Lifting them down mid-climb without warning.
- Putting them up somewhere they did not climb to themselves.
If it repeats
If you are stopping every climb, work out which part is genuinely dangerous and permit the rest — a blanket no teaches nothing and gets ignored. Where there is no brake at all, stay within reach.
Why the book suggests this
Research on children's risky play keeps finding the same inconvenient thing: height, speed and rough-and-tumble are how children calibrate their own bodies, and children who are stopped early are not safer later. The climbing is doing something.
But the parent standing underneath is having a real physiological response, and pretending otherwise does not help. This card is about what comes out of your mouth in that moment, because a shout at the wrong second is the thing most likely to bring them down.
From this collection
Same Words: Their Own Body
45 prepared situations in this family area.