We include three excerpts from our new book:
Raising Children Who Soar: A Guide to Healthy Risk Taking in an Uncertain World
Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2009
ISBN 978–0-8077–4997-5
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From Chapter 1
A fundamental principle is that risk-taking develops largely in the context of the parent-child relationship. A child’s risk-taking style emerges through the ongoing give and take interactions between parent and child. There is not one type of child or a particular type of parent-child match (for example, shy parent with outgoing child) that bodes well – or poorly – for the development of good risk-taking. In fact, all children can become good risk takers, no matter how they are wired, or what happens as they grow. This finding is consistent with contemporary neuroscience research that indicates that the human brain is far more flexible than was thought twenty years ago.
From Chapter 3
The ongoing parent-child relationship is an important context for a child to develop his risk-taking style. This is a mutual process — daily interactions between us shape the kind of risk-taker our child becomes. As parents, we have the ability to influence and guide the ways in which our child approaches risks. In addition to understanding how risk-taking unfolds with child development, we can achieve this through a two-part process of personal self-reflection and learning to listen to our children. First, the process of self-reflection helps us to see ourselves honestly, with all of our lumps and bumps, strengths and faults. After becoming more self-insightful, we are prepared to see our children for who they are, rather than as an extension of who we would like them to be. Through listening carefully to our children, we can help them to become good risk-takers. Careful listening involves hearing what our children say and what they don’t say; it also involves careful observation of our children. We need to pay attention to how they look when they are talking to us — their facial expressions, body language, and demeanor. In this chapter, we explain how learning these skills of self-reflection and communication impact directly the ways in which our child takes risks.
From Chapter 5
In Chapter Four, we discussed how different temperamental styles lend themselves to different ways of approaching risk-taking. The connection between the parent and child’s temperament influences the evolution of emotional risk-taking. This is also true of the teacher and student.
It is a hard enough process for the parent who has one or a few children to create a strong parent-child connection. How can a teacher, who has 25 or 30 students, possibly accommodate the highly divergent and evolving risk-taking needs in his classroom? And how can a parent support risk-taking in the classroom for his child without being intrusive?