Can't touch this!

Over the past week and a bit, Jasmine gained the strength and courage to do more. I've known that she had been wanting to stand up for a while now as we've been practicing. Suddenly one day she figured out how to get up on her own!

Fast forward 1 week.

This post has taken me a while to write and since I put it on pause, Jasmine has started to crawl consistently and even able to stand unassisted for a few seconds! She has always been curious and now she has figured out the ability to move to take a closer look.

Already she is crawling over to furniture to stand up, and many times things that were stacked up are knocked over. Luckily for now these stacks are only folded clothes and her books, but this brings me to the main topic.

When I was a little kid I don't remember my house being child proofed very much. I climbed up and down the stairs and I don't recall opening cupboards and drawers to play with whatever is inside. I do remember the power outlets having the covers. My two younger brothers definitely didn't have child proofing or I would have remembered it. My first encounter would be for my cousins, who were only a few years younger than me. The kitchen cupboards had the inner locks. I found it annoying because I was trying to get cups or something.

These days, child proofing is at a different level. I do agree that some things need to be child proofed, especially if items can't be moved for whatever reason. For example, drawers containing knives, cupboards containing chemicals, and stairways should be blocked off. I say should, because I think some kids are less inclined to get into that kind of trouble. Really though, the main goal is preventing these accidents (because kids don't mean to do it... right?). At the same time, putting that trust in the kids gives them immense responsibility, self-awareness, and critical analysis. Of course, parental supervision is always required. I'm not saying to leave knives lying around, but sometimes things that are more difficult to get might be more rewarding in their young minds.

Child proofing is scary. I'm saying this as an adult because when I look at things they look quite sturdy. When you think about how a child might climb something, it suddenly looks much more dangerous than it needs to be. Perhaps this is a good thing to be worried about but you can also be too safe. Kids need to be able to learn risk and to assess it. Overprotective parents could prevent learning this ability to assess risk because the parents are always taking that risk away. There's a difference between tying down that TV that could fall over and disinfecting every blade of grass the baby might sit on.