Children are born with different temperaments and have their own paces for learning and development… and that’s okay! Our role as parents is two-fold -- we celebrate our kids’ strengths while helping them compensate for any shortcomings they may have.

My daughter Judy is cautious. If she sees a new activity or game, she observes first and makes sure she can do it before joining. My concerns as a parent are: Is she too cautious and will she take chances? I worry about how she will succeed if she avoids challenges.

I try to put myself in her shoes to understand why she is reluctant to take risks. I think she is scared to try new things because she’s afraid of failure. So my role is tell help her understand that it’s okay to fail, even necessary, because that is how we learn. Success is not determined by how many trophies we win but by whether we are willing to try. And that means we have to be willing to fail!

Compassion is the key to connecting with children and encouraging them to take baby steps. According to Anne Eardley, a vice principal in Cambridgeshire in the U.K., parents can lead by example, emphasizing effort over results. Parents and children can talk together about a specific challenge: “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” Usually, the worst scenario is not really that bad. Put the possible failure in context and free your children to try.

I try to bear in mind that risk-averse parenting can have long-term effects. Indeed, a team led by Sarah Brown of the University of Sheffield in the U.K. found that “children of risk-averse parents have lower test scores and are slightly less likely to attend college than offspring of parents with more tolerant attitudes toward risk.”

I also think about how I role model my own response to risk. Sometimes I wonder: Am I a risk-averse parent? Well, I allow Judy to take slides heads-first and to climb up a slide (if no other child is going down the slide).  But I will admit I’m a worrier.

So Judy and I will try to be more adventurous together. The next time she wants to wash dishes with me, I’ll let her try to clean that heavy pot. I’ll be nervous but that’s the price of growth!

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