How Cautious Should You Be With Your Kids?

Posted by Lorren on July 14, 2010

My kids caught the cold sore virus last week. The majority of people have the virus, and it doesn’t bother most. Evidently, the first time you catch the virus, it can make you very sick. It took out my little boy for a couple of days, and it took out my little girl for eight days.

Unfortunately for her, this is the week for her gymnastics summer camp. She had been looking forward to it for months… and it took me a few months to save up for. The illness really exhausted her… she’d sleep for nearly 18 hours a day, and she could hardly eat.

Yesterday afternoon, she turned around. She ate dinner last night (after taking an ibuprofen and rinsing with a “magical mouthwash” concoction), and got a good night’s sleep. So I decided to wake her up this morning and take her to gymnastics. Fortunately, we don’t have to pay for the two days she missed.

Now, some people would suggest that I keep my kid home to recover, but why keep her home? She was doing fine. She had a good night’s sleep. She told me that she felt fine this morning, and was acting like her normal self. She had a good day; by keeping her home, I would have been depriving her of the chance to learn, to interact with her friends, and to have a good time.

I realize that all kids are created differently. Some kids are pretty fragile, get sick all the time, and take forever to recover from their illnesses. My kids take after me; I’m built like a draft horse. My kids are thin and all, but they are pretty hardy.

We can’t keep our kids from everything. There’s risk in sports, especially at the higher levels. Now, my kids are not at high levels (dd is level 2 and ds is doing preschool gymnastics), but if they are good, I don’t see a reason to shelter them and keep them from life, even if it is risky.

I suppose that parents all have to choose a level of risk for themselves. I don’t think that I would let my daughter try to sail around the world by herself at age 16, but some parents do. It’s all a matter of the level of risk that you are comfortable with.