This little fellow had a goal!  Who am I to thwart his enthusiasm?

We have a lot of “Loose Parts” floating around our preschool grounds which are used in a multitude of different ways by the children to represent a multitude of different things.

On this day, Zac was using our solid cardboard tubes to build a tower.  He started at ground level and reached as far as his arms would stretch.  He then began to add blocks beside the tower to gain height.

Zac explained to me that these blocks were ‘temporary’ steps, rather like scaffolding, which would be removed once the tower was complete.  Zac normally works closely with his friend Sean on his building endeavours, but Sean was somewhat reluctant to continue on at this stage.  There was a lot of conversation between the boys about being frightened and being brave.  Sean openly admitted to Zac that he was fearful of the height and was happy to watch Zac continue on alone.  Zac commented that he wasn’t scared of anything, he was brave.

Zac continued to build his stairs.

They eventually reached a height that started to look somewhat daunting, even to our fearless little worker.  He started to question the safety of the stairs and appeared a little uneasy about climbing them.  And yet, he still wanted his tower to reach the roof.  He had not relinquished his goal.

I prompted him by asking, “What do you think would be helpful to you right now?”  He responded with, “A ladder!”  I said, “We have one of those, would you like me to get it?”   “Yes!” he beamed.

So the ladder was employed.  By this time, Zac’s efforts had drawn the attention of another little friend, Jensen, who was clearly impressed with what he saw and keen to contribute too.

Zac began to climb the ladder as I stood below.  He made it as far as the third rung from the top and paused.  He was clearly mentally assessing the situation.  He had climbed as far as he felt was safe, and yet was still not high enough to reach the top of the tower.  He turned and looked to the ground and to me.  I asked him, “Would you like me to hold you?”   He responded, “Yes”.

Unfortunately, the small piece of tubing that he had assessed as being just the right height to reach the roof, turned out to be of a smaller circumference and therefore fell through the tube below.

He retrieved the tube, and tried again.  Mmmm, no, not going to work!

Jensen was then keen to give it a go and he scaled the ladder equipped with an arm full of tubes!

But ooops… the tower topples to the ground!

Amazingly, neither of the boys appeared overly phased by the towers demise.  They seemed to be sufficiently pleased with the efforts they had made.  Their faces were beaming and their self-esteem had been given a mighty boost.  Invigorated by their experience, they then went on to link the tubes along the ground to make them as ‘long’ as they could.

What a travesty of justice it would have been if I had determined that this activity was unsafe for Zac to pursue!  He was clearly very capable of working in a safe manner and the boost to his self-esteem far out-weighed any doubts that I may have had.

So the moral of the story?  Children are quite capable of doing their own ‘risk assessment’.  As Dr Suess says, “A person is a person no matter how small”.  Just like adults, their body gives them warnings of danger.  Their body will produce the ‘fight or flight’ response, adrenaline will begin to flow when their body senses danger.  Clearly, we need to allow and support children in their attempts at “Risky Business”!

Click here for more risky business I CLIMBED A TREE TODAY!