Safety

Our visit today from the Ski Patrol to help us all learn about safety in avalanche conditions prompted me to think about the broader issue of safety in our children’s lives. Here in Steamboat, we and our children are very involved in outdoor activities, some of which carry inherent risks. We cannot help but be tuned in to physical safety as we ski, snowshoe, and snowmobile in the winter and as we hike, bike, and swim in the summer. At Whiteman Primary, faculty, parents, and students talk about and engage in safe practices as they hike and swim at the fall camp trip. The Winter Skills trip and our spring trips provide further opportunities for students to learn, share experiences, and teach others about how to be safe in the wild. The newspaper reminds us to pack our cars with winter safety kits, as it shares news about the tragedies that can befall those in treacherous conditions and those who were not prepared.

Keeping ourselves and our children safe extends beyond trips and outside activities to our homes and school. At school we have fire drills, and the students learn directly from the Steamboat Fire Department how to be safe if there is a fire at home. Children take those lessons home and share what they’ve learned with their parents. This same experience of using the lessons from school to make a change at home is something I remember from my own childhood. I vividly recall asking my father to take me to a marine store to buy a very thick rope which we then tied to my bedframe so that I could escape from my second story bedroom in case of a fire —just knowing that rope was there made me feel so much safer. One of our parents recently shared how proud she was of her kindergarten-age daughter for coming home and helping the family plan safe routes from the house. Good job, Tinsley!

But safety extends beyond the physical, and as parents and teachers we are equally concerned with emotional safety. As Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs reminds us, once our physical needs are met, the need for safety is the most basic (http://www.abraham-maslow.com/m_motivation/Hierarchy_of_Needs.asp). The old adage, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” resonates with many of us from older generations. But we also remember that even while reciting this, possibly out loud, we were actually hurting inside from other children’s words. At school, we discuss with students how to use their words and actions to bolster others’ feelings, and we help them use the inevitable mistakes they make as learning experiences.

Just as our children will suffer physical hurts and recover, they will suffer emotional pain that if understood well enough will help them grow into strong adults. In the same way that we arm children with skills to avoid and deal with physical harm, we need to explicitly prepare them for the emotional harm they will encounter. Sometimes that harm will be accidental (a fall or an unkind “foot in mouth” word), and sometimes that harm will be intentional (a push or a mean-spirited comment), but in all cases, it is our hope that our children will be resilient, will learn to understand why the hurt happened, and will fully recover. We can help our children take measures to avoid pain, and we can help them use each painful experience they encounter to learn better ways to keep themselves safe. Since we cannot be with our children at every single moment of every day, our teaching them the skills to protect themselves is essential to keeping them safe both physically and emotionally.