This post presents 3 important ways of thinking that are developed when our children experience appropriately challenging adventures.

1. Does protecting your child from risk keep them safe?
2. What kind of adventures?
3. 3 ways adventures change our thinking
4. What could this look like in real life?
5. Try this today
6. Takeaways

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Does Protecting Your Child From Risk Keep Them Safe?

“Avoiding harm is essential to survival” but “overcoming risks is necessary to build resilient brains¹” 

The words adventure and risk go together. It’s impossible to have a thorough conversation about how adventure changes our brains without acknowledging the elephant in the room: adventures carry inherent risk.  We have a parental responsibility (and innate desire) to protect our children from harm. For that reason, some parents may shy away from the idea of challenging our children. 

When thinking about taking your children to a new place or to try a new thing, you may have hesitations and “What ifs” that cloud your mind:

• What if my child is uncomfortable? 
• What if my child encounters a difficult problem? 
• What if my child gets emotionally or physically hurt?

I’m going to respond with a few questions of my own…

• WHEN (not if) your child experiences a difficult problem or uncomfortable situation, will he have confidence in his ability to navigate it successfully? 
• Will she fear failure or embrace challenges as potential learning opportunities? 
• Does your child know that he can do hard things? 

By appropriately challenging your children beyond their comfort zones, you are building their ability to thrive despite changing circumstances that they WILL inevitably face. Adventures encourage important types of thinking to help them navigate the stressful experiences they will undoubtedly encounter either in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood. “We tend to idealize childhood as a carefree time²” but children may encounter problems ranging from adapting to a new classroom to navigating their parents’ divorce. “Add to that the uncertainties that are part of growing up in a complex world, and childhood can be anything but carefree.²” 

The bottom line–if we overprotect, we leave no room for them to grow.

Our children need to know and believe they can do hard things–and they learn their own capacity to do hard things by…successfully doing hard things! 

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What kind of adventures?

Dr. Larry Brendtro defines adventure as “engaging in stressful activities with manageable risk.¹” He describes adventure on a continuum, just beyond play (fun and little stress or fear) but not reaching to the point of crisis (threat of physical or psychological harm). 

This is crucial–when I say that risk is good for our children’s brains, I am not saying we should put them in danger of major harm to their minds or bodies. I am suggesting that we choose appropriate challenges in supportive environments, with a supportive and engaged parent present.

When choosing an adventure for your family, think about what your children are currently capable of. You want to push them to try new things–which involves small amounts of stress that are manageable and even good—but you do not want to overwhelm them leading to high amounts of stress. Think Goldilocks here—not too much and not too little. Activities that provide just the right amount of challenge (good stress) can help our brains generate better recovery responses, retrieve memories from past experiences to apply to this situation, and generate new memories to add to their toolbox. 

Too little challenge? Not enough risk? Too much parent involvement? If the adventure isn’t stimulating, has no perceived usefulness, or doesn’t support autonomy, the brain will “downshift to lower order functioning.³” No risk, no gain. The brain isn’t going to spend energy on things it doesn’t perceive as important, useful, or interesting. 

Too much challenge? Too much risk? Not enough support? If the adventure is challenging beyond what the individual has the capacity to achieve, or if they feel that they do not have the support necessary to take appropriate risks, higher levels of stress will hinder ability to access parts of the brain that allow decision making and judgment. 

An adventure with your child can be as simple as a ride to a new grocery store, or as novel as a weekend camping trip. For your family it might look like a walk around the neighborhood or a short hike to a waterfall at your local state park. Personally, my first few trips to a local park with all three of my children, four years old and younger, felt like major excursions until I grew more comfortable.

An adventure is any opportunity to get your child out of their normal routine, respond to a new environment or situation, and build their adaptability. Adventures don’t have to be outside, but there are special benefits to outdoor environments.⁴

The “best” adventures³:

• Differ from our everyday normal (provide novelty)
• Offer just the right amount of challenge (not too easy or overwhelming)
• Provide opportunities for both failure and success
• Involve personal support and safety (you—the present, responsible adult)
• Engaging and perceived as useful for the child(ren)
• Provide open ended challenges and promote choice (autonomy and independent thinking)

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3 Ways Adventures Change Our Thinking

By providing adventures (challenges) for our children, we are helping them change their thinking in three different ways that will help them thrive throughout their lives: self efficacy, resilience, and reflection.

1. Self Efficacy
   • Self efficacy is a person’s belief in their competence to execute a specific behavior or achieve a particular goal⁵. 
   • Self efficacy is developed in a child who believes they have the capacity to achieve a goal. It provides an optimism and confidence, based on a personal assessment of skills and capacity, that intrinsically motivates a child to try something new.
   • While self efficacy may sound like self esteem, the two are not the same. Self-esteem is an overall regard a person has for themselves and more often associated with a general attribute of confidence. Self efficacy is a belief specific to a behavior or goal. 

2. Resilience
   • Resilience is successful adaptation (mental, emotional, or behavioral) to challenging experiences and internal or external demands.⁶
   • What happens in the brain? “…resilience may be explained by the brain’s innate capability to adapt its structure (growth of new cells) and function (re-wiring of existing cells) directly in response to environmental exposure.³”
   • Resilient thinking is when a child tells themselves that even if they don’t succeed or achieve a goal, they will be able to adapt and find a new way of thinking. Resilience helps the child to know what failure looks like, to learn from it, and apply their learning to the next problem they encounter. When they find mistakes to be learning opportunities, they can try new adventures without fear of failure. 
   • Adventures will not always go as planned. “The goal is not to eliminate emotional ups and downs in a child’s life, but to understand that these ups and downs are normal and can be dealt with.⁴”

3. Reflection
   • Reflection is thinking about an experience, evaluating it, and synthesizing the learning that occurred. Reflection is an important metacognitive skill (awareness of your own thinking) that leads to self discovery of strengths and weaknesses.
   • What happens in the brain? Providing time for explanation or time for quiet thinking allows the new experience “to be absorbed as new brain cells are created and neural pathways strengthened.³”  Reflection, making sense of the adventure, can have more impact on building resilience than the actual experience itself.³
   • We want an open, growth view of a child’s capabilities during self assessment. We don’t want fear of failure or risk avoidance. 
   • Use reflective thinking prompts:
     1. What went well? 
     2. What would you do differently next time?

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What could this look like in real life? 

Let’s imagine an example: You plan a Saturday morning adventure to your local state park. On a short hike, you point your child toward a log that has fallen across a creek and made a “cool bridge.” You keep a positive, upbeat tone and ask, “Do you want to cross it? I’ll be right here if you need me.” 

 Let’s consider the types of thinking that could be built through this adventure:

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Try this today: ways to challenge your children through adventure

• Know your Child.
  • Knowing your child is the best way to provide the right opportunities for them to try something new, with just the right level of challenge that will inspire and not overwhelm them. Daniel J. Siegel, MD and Tina Payne Bryson, PhD, co-authors of the book The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity, and Resilience in Your Child, describe the importance of knowing when your child needs “pushin’ or cushion.⁷” The only way to know whether to push or back off is to have a great relational foundation with your child that includes security and safety.
  • As their parent, you are in the perfect position to know your child, how they learn, and how they operate. 

• Model it and say it.
  • Children see and follow. The best way to change your child’s behavior is to change your own. Let them see you persisting in goals even when you encounter an obstacle. Say it—verbalize your frustration at the obstacle and as you strategize another way to accomplish your goal, say your thoughts out loud to make these abstract ideas more tangible for your children. When you offer specific praise after they encounter a challenge, verbalize what you saw them do, emphasizing effort and strategy over success. 
    • A note—you don’t have to have a lecture or hours long session in which you bombard your child with questions and thoughts about how they “jumped off that rock so well.” Too many words can be counterproductive. But keep a watchful eye on them as they attempt a challenging feat and think about simple ways to reinforce these important types of thinking. It can even be better to say nothing, and let the personal reflection in their minds do the teaching. Often, the experience speaks for itself. 

• Don’t fear risk.
  • Appropriate risk is not the same thing as neglect or putting your child in harm’s way. It’s natural and necessary for survival to want to protect your child, but navigating challenges is how your child learns to endure and thrive. Get out there! Keep your eyes out for possible challenges and adventures. 

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Takeaway:

Adventures are a low cost and high impact way to change your child’s brain.

Children of all ages benefit from intentional, occasional deviations from routine. Adventures remove us from our “normal” comforts and help us to actively engage in new experiences. Exploring new environments, trying new skills, and navigating risks all have direct impacts on developing brains. In fact, our incredible brains can even re-wire and adapt in response to changing environments. 

By appropriately challenging your children beyond their comfort zones, you are building their ability to thrive despite changing circumstances. You are building up important brain skills (also known as cognitive skills) to help them navigate the stressful experiences they will undoubtedly encounter either in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood. 

Our children need to know and believe they can do hard things–and they learn their own capacity to do hard things by…successfully doing hard things! 

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References

1. The Dueling Needs for Safety and Adventure 

2. Resilience Guide for Parents and Teachers

3. Brain resilience: Shedding light into the black box of adventure processes

4. Nature Preschools and Forest Kindergartens: The Handbook for Outdoor Learning

5. Self Efficacy: Helping Children Believe They Can Succeed

6. Resilience

7. The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity, and Resilience in Your Child