Kids must learn about risk, but I don't have to like it

Risk.

Man, I don't even like that word.

Never have.

I like it even less now that I'm a father and have a little girl more precious to me than I could have ever imagined. But the Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents, a British safety watchdog group whose very mandate is to prevent needless injuries said children must play in the wild and be exposed to some risk in their lives in order to help them develop physically and help them nurture their decision-making abilities.

The RoSPA, as the cool kids are calling them, said 'children can learn valuable lifelong lessons, particularly about risks and how to deal with them, from playing in the natural environment, and that parents have to accept that their child might get injured. Bumps, bruises and grazes are not serious injuries and part of growing up.'

The RoSPA also suggested that kids are better off breaking a wrist falling out of a tree rather than being brought to hospital by their parents for a repetitive strain injury from playing video games or with a computer. Sounds good to me. The fact is, a generation ago, when kids were running wild all over the neighbourhood, their parents didn't worry nearly as much about the scary pedophile lurking in the bushes or in parks, just waiting for kids to come along. Our parents threw us in the back of massive cars - when seatbelts were sort of optional, and our parents chain-smoked with the car windows up, and they didn't worry a whole lot about it. We didn't. But we know better now, don't we? Our kids are safer than ever before, and if there was a playsuit made of bubble wrap, I'd buy that, too!

I'm of two minds about this.

Rationally, I say 'of course kids need risk. Of course they need to roughhouse, wrestle, jump from places and hurt themselves,' but when push comes to shove, I'm right there to catch my daughter if she's going to fall from wherever.

And fall she does. Constantly. In hilariously contorted positions. But there I am. My wife is a touch more relaxed than I am, so she's better able to let things go, but not me. I can't just let my tiny little baby jump off the swing set supports using the swing as a rope, even though she wants to very, very badly. So, therein lies the conflict. My rational mind wrestling with my irrational fears. It's exhausting, especially since those that know me realize I'm probably not smart enough to have half my mind wrestling with the other half, because neither half was exactly the Spartan army to begin with. How do you deal with that?

I've come up with a way.

When I take my daughter to the park, for instance, I just close my eyes and cower, listening only for the delighted shriek of a climb well accomplished or the anguished cry of 'help me, Daddy.' That way I know how to react. Now, we have our little ritual. She starts climbing up someplace high and when she gets near the top, instead of hollering for me to look at her, she makes sure I'm doing the opposite.

Are you not looking, Daddy?

OK!

And down the roof of the jungle-gym house she slides, or whatever it happens to be, depending on the park and the kid, of course, and gets safely to the bottom.

'You can look now, Daddy!'

For now, anyway.