Off the top of my head, it is about your duty of care and the need for the child to learn and experience things to help them develop.
So, think about the risks young children may take when
* using a climbing frame.
* Walking on a wall
* Jumping off things
We have to allow them to make judgements and decisions about safety, guide them and offer support that helps them learn about risks etc, but we also need to allow them to take sensible risks to achieve this. This is why we risk asses everything. The climbing frame will have been risk assessed, low risks will have been taken into account, but with correct management by the staff the climbing frame will be essential for the children's development.
The dilemma is what risks we allow and how we manage it. For a child to have a balanced view on taking risks, to help enhance and expand their abilities we need to allow children the opportunities to make their own choices, decide what they are capable of doing, and allow them to make mistakes in a safe and controlled way. If they are not allowed to manage their risks in childhood, and they are over protected from things, they will not have the ability to judge for themselves when older what may put them in danger. It also applies to children that may be 'dare devils', we need to teach them that there are risks to some actions they may take, and give them the skills to stop and think and assess situations before acting to quickly when the risk could be too great.
With older children and young adults it will be decisions like who they socialise with, drugs, alcohol, sexual relationships, work, money etc. They need to be able to judge situations, understand consequences, have the ability to say no or stand up for the self.
In the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - Al children and young people have the right to learn and develop into adults and be protected. So we have to help them learn AND protect them. That's where our duty of care can come into some sort of conflict with the rights of the child.
So think of a dilemma (climbing), what will the child gain from it, what would they lose out on if you stopped them from doing it, and how both of these would effect their development, and think of your responsibility in lines with duty of care.
Hope that helps. Hope its not confused you even more!!!!
