#1 A Safe Space to Grow for Children- Food for Thought

I was watching a video on YouTube a few weeks back and it was a little kid telling her mom that she was sneaking and ate three slices of cake. There was no fear in her eyes as she was being asked questions by her mother. This gentle curiosity from the mother and the free-spirited answers from the daughter was funny and also it showed something deeper. The little girl felt safe enough to tell her mother something that could be seen as bad behavior. While there is no video of her behavior being corrected in-camera, another short of the same child showed that she didn’t hesitate to own up to her mistakes. Now we can always take these videos as potentially being rehearsed but we cannot deny that safety and trust strengthen the foundation of communication.

Feeling safe and secure is one of the foundational experiences of children (and adults) who feel secure within themselves. In Psychology, when we study development throughout a person’s lifespan, we try to look into what a child’s immediate surrounding is like,  who are the people they interact with and how these interactions impact them. I do want to clarify that ensuring that children feel safe does not mean their behavior isn’t checked or corrected, rather, it is more about creating the space where they can form trusting relationships around them.

Many Psychology research work like studying different types of attachment styles, developmental studies generally also look at the the adults (caregivers or even teachers) in their lives and what role they play in the kid’s life.

Maybe this is a conversation we can all have with ourselves-“How do I make the children in my life feel safe and build trust with them?”. Because a child who trusts their parents, teachers other care givers will feel safe to share the milestones they achieve but they might also feel safe to share their hiccups without fearing punishment. Not only that, relationships like that might help kids catch on to harmful behavior like in the instance of neglect, harassment, other abuses that many children experience but feel shamed to share.

I don’t intend to write these words to preach to others, rather I want us to discuss more these ideas and see what have we already done to make all the children in our lives feel safer to think, be curious, explore the world around them and maybe stumble while doing that.

Tags- #writing #writtenwords #psychology #foodforthought #milyin #milyincreators #parents #children #safety #security #parents #teachers #kindness #security #trust #development #whatdoyouthink #growth