What Does Your Child Need Right Now?

Children are surrounded by adults making decisions about what they can and cannot handle.

Parents. Grandparents. Family members. Educators. Helpers. Coaches. Other caregivers.

That's part of caring for children.

Someone has to stop the toddler from running into the road. Someone has to decide that bedtime is happening despite a compelling closing argument from the three-year-old. Someone has to recognise dangers that a young child simply does not have the experience or developmental capacity to recognise yet.

Children need adults to exercise judgement.

The problem begins when judgement quietly becomes certainty.

You can't do that.

You're too young.

You'll fall.

You won't like it.

Or, from the opposite direction:

You can do this.

You've done it before.

Stop fussing.

You'll be fine.

They sound like two completely different approaches to children.

I'm not sure they are.

In both cases, an adult has already decided what the child is capable of before collecting enough information from the child standing in front of them.

And because adults control so much of children's environments, our assumptions don't remain assumptions for very long.

They become opportunities given — or opportunities withheld.

“You can't do that.”

Children can look spectacularly helpless.

Because, in many ways, they are.

They need us to feed them before they can feed themselves. Dress them before they can dress themselves. Carry them before they can walk. Keep them alive while they develop the skills and judgement required to participate in keeping themselves alive.

And then, inconveniently, they keep changing.

Yesterday they couldn't climb onto something.

Today they can.

Last month they needed your hand.

Today your hand is apparently an outrageous infringement upon their independence.

They struggle with something nine times and then, on attempt ten, something clicks.

Given developmentally appropriate opportunities to explore and encounter manageable challenges, children can sometimes demonstrate considerably more problem-solving and adaptive capacity than the adults around them expected (Brussoni et al., 2012; Skene et al., 2022).

That does not mean children will always figure things out.

Sometimes they try and cannot do it.

Sometimes they need help.

Sometimes they need the task broken down, the environment adapted or an adult beside them.

Sometimes they're simply not ready yet.

That's information too.

The point of giving children opportunities isn't to prove that they're capable. It's to give us better evidence of what they're capable of.

Which makes one common adult response worth examining:

You can't do that.

Maybe they can't.

But how do we know?

Because we watched them attempt it?

Because we understand the particular hazard involved?

Because we've assessed their current abilities?

Or because looking at the situation made us uncomfortable?

Those are not the same thing.

And if the answer is always no, we create a peculiar problem:

How exactly is a child supposed to demonstrate readiness for something they are never allowed to attempt?

The loop we don't notice

Imagine an adult believes a child cannot manage something.

So the adult prevents the child from trying.

The child therefore gains little experience doing it.

Later, the adult observes that the child cannot do it independently.

Evidence!

Except perhaps it isn't evidence of what we thought it was.

Sometimes we inadvertently create a loop:

I don't think you can → I don't let you try → I don't see you succeed → I remain convinced you can't.

This doesn't mean every limitation is created by adults.

Children have genuine developmental limits. Different children develop different abilities at different times. Some need substantial support or adaptation to participate in particular activities. Sometimes our original assessment was entirely correct.

But an assessment can be correct today without becoming a permanent description of the child.

That's where the loop becomes dangerous.

A child is “shy”, so adults answer questions for them.

A child is “clumsy”, so someone immediately holds their hand.

A child “doesn't like new food”, so unfamiliar food stops appearing.

A child “can't cope with change”, so everyone works very hard to prevent change.

A child is “not ready”, so the opportunity goes to somebody else.

Sometimes those assessments are accurate.

Sometimes they began as accurate assessments and nobody noticed that the child changed.

And sometimes the adults around the child have become so efficient at compensating for an assumed limitation that the child rarely gets an opportunity to provide contradictory evidence.

Research into children's active play has identified how adult safety concerns, supervision practices and institutional rules can restrict opportunities for exploration and challenging play (Jerebine et al., 2022).

Children aren't simply passive recipients of adult care.

They explore.

They experiment.

They watch.

They imitate.

They make mistakes.

They adjust.

They try something slightly differently.

They discover what happens.

And occasionally they solve a problem in a way no sensible adult would have devised — but it works.

That adaptive capacity can be difficult to see when adults get there first.

Difficult is not the same as dangerous

None of this is an argument for tossing children at hazards in the name of resilience.

There are dangers children cannot reasonably assess.

Adults should manage them.

There are also challenges children can engage with, with varying degrees of supervision and support.

Research into children's play has explored the distinction between hazards and developmentally appropriate risk, as well as the ways adult safety concerns and supervision can affect children's opportunities for challenging play (Brussoni et al., 2012, 2015; Jerebine et al., 2022).

That makes one particular word worth examining:

Safe.

Because sometimes when adults say “That's not safe,” what we really mean is:

That makes me nervous.

Or:

I cannot guarantee that nothing will go wrong.

Those are very different standards.

A step can be difficult without being unacceptably dangerous.

A physical task can require concentration without requiring rescue.

A social interaction can become awkward without requiring immediate adult intervention.

A new skill can produce frustration without being developmentally inappropriate.

Children do not need a world in which nothing goes wrong.

They need adults who can distinguish between something going wrong that they can learn to navigate and something going wrong that they cannot reasonably protect themselves from.

Sometimes caring means intervening immediately.

Sometimes caring means staying close enough to intervene — and doing absolutely nothing yet.

And then there is “You can do this.”

Of course, adult certainty works in the opposite direction too.

Sometimes we're so convinced of a child's capability that we stop noticing when that capability isn't available.

You did it yesterday.

You normally love this.

You've been coming here for months.

There's nothing to be scared of.

You'll be fine once you start.

Maybe.

Or perhaps today the child is exhausted.

Hungry.

Overwhelmed.

Unwell.

Frightened.

Dealing with an environment they are finding unusually difficult.

Or simply having a terrible day, which children are inconveniently allowed to have too.

A child having managed something before is useful information.

It is not a contractual obligation to manage it every time thereafter.

This is where “I know this child” can become strangely counterproductive.

We know the child usually enjoys swimming, so we decide they need to get into the pool.

We know they're normally sociable, so we insist they join the group.

We know they can complete the work, so today's refusal becomes defiance.

We know they've climbed those stairs before, so today's hesitation becomes nonsense.

Our previous knowledge of the child starts overriding the information coming from the child standing directly in front of us.

The mistake isn't having an expectation.

Adults need expectations. We make decisions using previous experience because otherwise every day with a child would begin as though we'd never met them before.

The mistake is treating yesterday's information as though it cannot be updated today.

It takes a village. Every villager brings baggage.

Children rarely grow up in relationships with only one adult.

There may be parents and grandparents. Extended family. Helpers. Teachers. Coaches. Therapists. Childcare staff. Family friends.

That's potentially a wonderful thing.

It also means a child can become surrounded by adults carrying different ideas about who that child is.

One thinks they're cautious.

Another thinks they're fearless.

One thinks they're too young.

Another thinks they need to toughen up.

One sees a child who needs help.

Another sees a child who needs space.

One worries about what might happen if the child tries.

Another worries about what might happen if they never do.

Every adult may genuinely believe they are acting in the child's best interests.

But caring about a child does not make any of us objective observers.

We bring our own childhoods.

Our own tolerance for risk.

Our own expectations of children.

Our own ideas about obedience, independence, competence and safety.

Our own experiences of what happened the last time something went wrong.

And our own anxiety.

The more adults involved in raising a child, the more interpretations of that child the child may have to live inside.

Which is why perhaps nobody in the village gets to stop being curious.

Understanding Your Child's Needs Begins with Observation

Parents may know things grandparents don't.

Grandparents may notice things parents miss.

Teachers see children functioning without their families present.

Coaches and instructors may see competencies that don't appear at home.

A helper who spends hours every day with a child may recognise patterns everyone else has overlooked.

Nobody necessarily has the complete child.

And knowing a child well does not mean knowing in advance what they need in every situation.

Perhaps understanding your child's needs begins with a different responsibility:

We should be better positioned to notice when something has changed.

The child who usually needs encouragement may genuinely need us to stop today.

The child who usually needs help may be ready for us to step back.

The child who couldn't manage something three months ago may have quietly acquired the skills to try again.

And the child who has done something fifty times may, for whatever reason, be unable to do it on attempt fifty-one.

Our knowledge of children should make us better observers of them.

It should not make observation unnecessary.

That doesn't mean abandoning judgement.

It means holding some of our judgements provisionally.

This is what I think this child can manage, based on what I currently know.

And then remaining willing to change our minds when the child gives us new information.

Whose discomfort are we solving?

Here's the less comfortable part.

Sometimes what looks like protecting a child is actually protecting an adult from discomfort.

Watching children struggle is uncomfortable.

Watching them wobble is uncomfortable.

Watching them make a decision we wouldn't make is uncomfortable.

Watching them attempt something when we can already imagine the fall, spill, disagreement, frustration or tears can be excruciating.

So we intervene.

Careful.

No.

Don't.

Let me.

Problem solved.

And perhaps we feel a little better.

Because the intervention was made in the name of safety or care, it can be remarkably difficult to ask whether the child actually needed rescuing.

Sometimes they absolutely did.

But sometimes we needed them to stop more than they needed us to stop them.

The reverse happens too.

Sometimes we need the child to continue.

We've already paid for the lesson.

We're running late.

Everyone else is waiting.

We don't want another disrupted routine.

We don't want them falling behind.

We are tired and really, really do not have the capacity for this particular battle today.

Adults have needs. Families have logistical constraints. Schools have timetables. Teachers have twenty other children. Nobody raises or educates children inside a laboratory with infinite time, money, patience and emotional bandwidth.

Those realities count.

But they make one question even more important:

Whose need, fear or discomfort am I responding to right now?

Look again

Perhaps we need to become a little less interested in proving that we know what's best for children.

And a little more interested in knowing the children themselves.

Before saying you can't, look again.

Before saying you can, look again.

Before rescuing, look again.

Before pushing, look again.

Ask:

Is this actually dangerous, or merely difficult?

Am I responding to the child in front of me, or the child I remember?

What evidence do I have that they cannot manage this?

What evidence do I have that they can?

Have I given them enough room to show me?

If they try and struggle, what support would help them participate rather than simply taking over?

Am I helping because they need help — or because watching them work it out is uncomfortable?

If I weren't uncomfortable right now, would I make the same decision?

And perhaps the question worth carrying around for a while:

Have I actually discovered what this child can do — or have I simply become very good at making sure they never need to do it?

Sometimes the answer will be: They tried. They can't manage this yet.

Good.

Now we know more than we did before.

The purpose was never to prove the child capable.

It was to replace assumption with better information.

We will still get it wrong.

Of course we will.

The point isn't perfect attunement. Nor should every staircase, swimming lesson, playground disagreement and piece of toast become an existential examination of our caregiving philosophy.

It is simply to leave enough uncertainty in our certainty to keep looking.

Because children are constantly changing underneath our conclusions about them.

It may take a village to raise a child.

But nobody in that village gets permanent authority over who that child is becoming.

The child should always be allowed to provide new evidence.

References

Brussoni, M., Gibbons, R., Gray, C., Ishikawa, T., Sandseter, E. B. H., Bienenstock, A., Chabot, G., Fuselli, P., Herrington, S., Janssen, I., Pickett, W., Power, M., Stanger, N., Sampson, M., & Tremblay, M. S. (2015). What is the relationship between risky outdoor play and health in children? A systematic review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 12(6), 6423–6454. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120606423

Brussoni, M., Olsen, L. L., Pike, I., & Sleet, D. A. (2012). Risky play and children's safety: Balancing priorities for optimal child development. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 9(9), 3134–3148. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph9093134

Jerebine, A., Fitton-Davies, K., Lander, N., Eyre, E. L. J., Duncan, M. J., & Barnett, L. M. (2022). “All the fun stuff, the teachers say, ‘that's dangerous!’” Hearing from children on safety and risk in active play in schools: A systematic review. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 19, Article 72. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-022-01305-0

Skene, K., O'Farrelly, C. M., Byrne, E. M., Kirby, N., Stevens, E. C., & Ramchandani, P. G. (2022). Can guidance during play enhance children's learning and development in educational contexts? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Child Development, 93(4), 1162–1180. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13730