Healthy risks and confronting challenges
It’s important to allow children to take healthy risks and confront challenges in order for them to develop important skills for problem solving and resilience.
We want our children to know they can take on challenges, solve problems and adapt to new or difficult situations.
A healthy risk pushes a child to have a go at something outside of their comfort zone that results in little harm if they are unsuccessful.
A healthy risk might be trying a new sport, joining in the school play or making a speech at assembly. These risks help children to learn that they are capable of learning new things and pushing through difficult or uncomfortable situations.
Some tips for encouraging healthy risk-taking
- Encourage your children to ‘have a go’ and try new things. Support them to try different activities and sports.
- Teach your children that it’s okay to fail sometimes. Help them see mistakes as part of learning. If we all feared mistakes, we would never challenge ourselves.
- Encourage perseverance and not giving up. When there are setbacks, help them to stay positive and not give up; ask your children to think of something they want to do and help them accomplish it.
- Make a bucket list for you and your kids to do together. Include new things that you could do with your child that would be new to you both.
