Brussoni – risk reframing tool part 2

So I want to turn now to talk to you about one of the projects we’re doing to get in to the mindset of parents and caregivers and others in terms of how they themselves approach what they let their kids do.  And so to that end, we’ve created an online platform, which is a tool that parents can use in order to learn more about this issue and also think very deliberately and specifically about their own parenting practices and some of the things that they might want to change.  And you can find that tool at outsideplay.ca.  It’s a tool that has three different modules that go with it.  So at the beginning we want you to think about the child that you care about.  So you can enter some personalized information and that’s used throughout the tool to make it really relevant to you.   

So we have parents think about what they want most for their child.  Do they want them to be independent, resilient, happy, healthy, whatever, they can choose those traits.  Then we have parents think back to some of their own favourite play memories and what was their absolute favourite thing to do when they were a kid.  And this is quite important because it really helps us put ourselves in the mindset of what it’s like to be a kid, the kinds of things that we valued at the time and how many meaningful outcomes came out of those play experiences.  So after that, we ask them about their child’s activities and favourite childhood play so that we can really get them to think in contrast about the kinds of things that they did versus the kinds of opportunities that their child has.   

After that, we give them a few different scenarios where we have them make a choice.  So they’ll see kind of an introductory video, the first one is about climbing a tree, a parent and child at a playground.  A child starts climbing a tree and the mother has to make a decision.  Does she let the child climb or does she get her to come down.  And so whoever is doing the tool can actually make the decision and then think about the outcomes of that decision.  So the video keeps playing out depending on the decision that the parent made.  They can also have a look, ok what if I’d made the other decision, then what would have happened?  And so we have scenarios around climbing a tree, walking home from school and building a fort.  And then we ask the parents to globally think about those scenarios and consider what were some of the things that came up for them that really made it hard for them to allow their children to do that.  What were some of the more prominent barriers?  And then we can also think about, ok, what about times when they might have let their child do that and what were some of the facilitators of that.  

And so all of that is then fed in to the third module where they can really think about their own journey and creating a plan for themselves.  So what are some of the things that they might want to change and the steps that they might want to take to make those changes.  And all of that then can be emailed to themselves.  They can set reminders for themselves, things they want to do and so on.   

So hopefully you’ll check that out and you’ll get a sense of that and we’d love to hear your feedback on it.