So, it really wasn’t a big deal …….for me. But my 9 year old was in the car with me, and in that split second it changed a lot of stories she tells herself.
It was cold on Friday night, around -16C. Said daughter had just finished her swim training and we were on our way home . On the main road, some airhead 2 cars ahead came to a complete urgent stop because they wanted to move into a lane that was full of motionless cars leaving our lane with no choice but to make emergency stops. My brakes were jittery (I suspect due to the cold) but I was able to stop. However…… the person behind was not. Big bang, scream from the back seat and all the info exchanges that typically follow.
Nobody is injured, daughter has been passing the time on her DS, off we go home.
It’s a totally normal evening until I go to tuck my 9 year old into bed and find her sobbing and frantic to give me papers that needed shredding because they had the names of her family on them. A quick reasoning and promise to shred them in the morning got her to sleep but she appeared in our room in the night.
Next morning I broached with her what I thought was going on.
“I guess you never thought we would get in a car accident?”
“No!!”, her eyes popping wider as I voice her concern.
“Does this make you feel that other bad stuff could happen too?”
“Yes”, said with an equal amount of fear and relief that this is understood.
While I can’t guarantee safety she seemed comforted by being able to open up the conversation. She doesn’t get to see much TV, and rarely the news but between that, lock down drills at school and overheard adult conversations she has enough to be scared about.
But she wasn’t scared, that is, until that small (in the scheme of things) incident burst her belief that all that bad stuff was just stories that would never affect her.
It made me question how you can really prepare a child around safety that doesn’t believe it can happen to them, without also giving them an irrational fear.
A great example being how many times I tell the kids to walk sensibly through car parks and watch for cars. And they are still silly with each other and don’t pay the slightest bit of attention to the other cars. It. Drives. Me. Crazy!!!!
As adults we don’t often question our own beliefs – they just are. As I watch my children grow I’m understanding more about how mine may have developed. But that’s a different story.