How to nurture my child to be cautious of her actions?

Question

Well, I saw this question but I have exact opposite problem with my 2 year old daughter, she doesn't fear from her actions that will hurt her. She is not afraid to do anything that is dangerous or risky, although she mostly stops doing things if we tell her that it will hurt her, but without us looking over her action she usually does it.

She would jump off from height, grabs stranger dogs, catches insects and fights older children. This is becoming more of a concern that she would hurt badly when things get really wrong. But she is very protective over other kids and has a very kind heart that she wouldn't hesitate to share anything with others, even her favorite toys. She is just so brave in her action.

Is it a good thing or bad thing?

Answer 1

I think your daughter is pretty similar to my two guys. They're both somewhat limited in their 'fear' reflex, at least for most things (my older one is pretty clingy when he thinks we're going to leave him somewhere).

There are basically two sides of this. On the one hand, being willing to try new things and do all sorts of physical activities is great. On the other hand, not jumping from unsafe heights would be nice, too.

What we did with our boys is:

1. Talk to them about why certain things are dangerous. Walking on the street is dangerous because of cars. Jumping from tall buildings is dangerous because of broken limbs. Etc.
2. Gave them guidelines for avoiding dangerous situations. They have to hold our hands while crossing a street. They should stop before an alley or driveway (or street) and wait for us to catch up. Certain playground things are for up-only (like some ladders that are hard to safely go down).
3. Carefully monitored them and reinforced the guidelines, and the reasons, until we were confident they understood them.

My three and a half year old I'm entirely confident walking down a busy street's sidewalk without holding onto him, regardless of his mood. He is very careful (but adventurous) on the playground sets. He tells me when other kids do things they shouldn't. He understands, internally, why it's not safe to do these things.

Now, is he perfect? Will he never ever make a mistake? No. But he understands why he should be careful, and almost always is - and I'm there to make sure nothing dangerous can happen if he does forget.

Ultimately, teaching your child why, not what, is the best thing you can do for them. Teach them what, you know what they'll do when you're there. Teach them why, you know what they'll do when you're not.

Answer 2

One of my daughters was like this. Still is, in new situations. My other daughter very carefully calculates her risks before taking them, but then proceeds fearlessly, and sometimes doesn't realize she has miscalculated. Usually kids just grow out of it with experience.

This might sound strange, but the most effective way I've found for them to learn to be more cautious is to let them get hurt when it's relatively safe to do so. Of course not life-threatening, bone-breaking, scarred-for-life kind of hurt, but minor-bumps-and-scrapes kind of hurt. Kids learn to be careful on the big things by making mistakes on the little things. That's how they learn to see safety as a consequence of their own actions, rather than some imaginary danger their parents are always irrationally going on about.

You can't just neglect the verbal teaching part, though. You want her brain making connections like, "My parents said to be careful jumping down, but I didn't listen and I got hurt. I should be careful crossing the street like they said too."