Confidence
Finding the Line Between Supporting and Rescuing Kids
Don’t protect children from frustration or risk.
Posted February 19, 2023 Reviewed by Devon Frye
Key points
- We want children to learn how to tolerate frustration. But many adults struggle to themselves manage children's frustration.
- Stepping in to help a child who hasn't asked for it isn't support; it's rescue when rescuing isn't needed.
- Stepping back and allowing children to determine their own levels of risk can help them learn, and often keeps them safer.
A few years ago a friend showed me a video he took of his young daughter. She was working hard to set her tricycle upright after it had overturned. She was increasingly frustrated, and so was I. I didn’t understand why her dad didn’t offer to help, but instead just kept on taking the video. At the end, the little girl was triumphant about getting her bike back up. I was still upset.
I demanded that my friend tell me why he didn’t help his daughter when she asked him over and over for help. I could understand encouraging a child to solve a problem on her own, but I couldn’t understand such callous disregard for a child’s pleas.
He looked at me with bewilderment, and I looked back at him with return bewilderment. He asked me to watch the video again. I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but I did.
I started to laugh. The girl never asked for help. Not once. I had imagined those requests vividly in my mind because I couldn’t handle her frustration. But she was managing her frustration just fine—even though there was a lot of it—and her dad was tolerating her frustration without jumping into rescue.
My outrage towards him turned to admiration. I took a long hard look at myself and my own tendency to jump in to rescue children from frustration. Watching the video the second time showed me how my brain actually “hears” desperate pleas for help when in reality there is only expression of emotion.
Now I understood better why it is so hard for me to step back when children do things that trigger my need to rescue them. Whether they are taking a physical risk such as climbing a tree, or experiencing a painful emotion such as frustration or anxiety, I am always pulled to step in. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll help you with that nasty feeling. That's not support; that's rescue where rescue isn't needed.
True Play/Anji Play
The dad in this story is no stranger to the idea of stepping back and trusting children to find their own power. He is Jesse Coffino, co-chair of the True Play Foundation. According to the foundation’s website: “True Play is deep and uninterrupted engagement in the activity of one’s own choice. True Play is most frequently characterized by observable experiences of risk, joy, and deep engagement. This is the deepest manifestation of learning, growth, and development.”
I met Jesse and saw this video on my first visit to the Anji Play early childhood education programs in China, where the philosophy of true play was developed by a visionary educator named Cheng Xueqin. Jesse was the translator and one of the organizers of this tour, and my out-of-sync reaction to his tricycle video started a conversation between us that has continued off and on for several years.
I learned that at Anji Play schools in China, and pilot programs around the world, the role of the teacher or adult is to step back with trust. As a principal at an Anji Play school told me, “The child is taking a risk, so we must match that risk and step back with our mouths closed and our hands down. We stay nearby, but we recognize that our trust leads to the child’s joy.”
When visitors see Anji Play students on the playground, they usually have an intense fight-or-flight response at the risks that students are taking and teachers are allowing, or they have tears of joy that children are provided such freedom and such room to grow. Some have both.
Safety Comes From Self-Determination of Risk
Although the play looks dangerous, research by Anji Play and the True Play foundation has found that these children suffer fewer injuries, and less serious injuries, than their counterparts at more traditional schools. That’s because when children are able to determine their own level of risk, they are safer.
As Mrs. Cheng says, “It isn’t how high you climb that makes it safe or dangerous, but whether you climb as high as you choose.” When adults step in too much, then children don’t have a chance to practice their capacity to assess risk for themselves. That’s just as dangerous as walking away and leaving children unsupervised. As someone who spent a lot of time saying “be careful, be careful,” to children, this was a powerful lesson for me.
An Anji Play teacher told me, “Our students take each other to the nurse, and pause their play to check if a classmate is hurt. That’s because when we step back, children’s responsibility to each other increases, and they also have a natural sense of responsibility for their own safety.”
The Adult Role
Here's a summary of the teacher or adult’s role in supporting True Play, from the Foundation's website:
- Support, but not direct or interfere with play.
- Allow for child-initiated risk-taking, collaboration, problem-solving, and pacing.
- Provide emotional support, and have confidence in children’s capacities and abilities.
- Be interested and curious. Closely observe children’s play, including their discoveries, interests, challenges, etc.
In other words, don’t leap from seeing a child’s frustration to hearing a demand for help, and don’t rush to rescue when you can be nearby conveying your confidence and trust.
