Sometimes it is important to know what your child has already learnt so that you can let them go a step further with confidence and allow them a little more independence. This is possible even if you still have certain fears that make you doubt your offspring's abilities. The key here is to find ways of overcoming your own fears.

What helps children in their development is the trust that parents can place in their abilities, so they must learn to let go when the time comes.


Here are some suggestions on how to do this without taking too many risks.

Example: You live in a house with steep stairs and are afraid to let your child go up or down alone.

Teach the child how to get up/down safely, e.g. upwards: on all fours, or always with your hand on the railing; downwards: sitting on your bottom, always sliding down one flight of stairs without standing up.

In the beginning, you should of course always be present when the child makes its first attempts. Later on, you can test whether the rules have been understood by playing the child yourself and going up or down the stairs. Show the correct and incorrect behaviour, with built-in mistakes for the child to correct. You can use this to see how far your child has internalised the rules.

It will take its job very seriously in order to show what it has learnt and also to have the pleasure of correcting you as a parent.

Similar strategies can be used in various everyday situations, e.g. when crossing the road, when handling water and the tap, which can be dangerous if the water is too hot, in the kitchen with the cooker, iron and other dangerous objects.

It is not always sensible to let your child manipulate these objects and sources of danger on their own, but you can be sure that they have learnt to assess these things and will be calmer themselves.

In other words, teach a baby what things in the house can be dangerous and later give them small tasks that involve these things in some way. It is necessary to "stage" these tasks to a certain extent because you do not want to create an acutely dangerous situation during the test phase.

For example, a two-year-old may have been taught for a long time that the iron is taboo for you because it can be hot. Now you can move on to showing him how to touch an iron, namely never touch the ironing surface, otherwise you could burn yourself. You can easily demonstrate what "hot" and "burn" mean using water or the radiator.

You want to iron and now ask your offspring to bring you the iron. (Prerequisite: it is in a place that he can reach without any problems, it is of course not hot!)

If possible, watch your child from a distance without scrutinising them. If they have done everything correctly, you should give them plenty of praise. If they have made mistakes, you can replay the situation with them, e.g. using the method where you play the child and they have to show you what mistakes you have made.

You will realise that your child is very proud of themselves, as they are allowed to manipulate things from the adult world and at the same time you teach them how to deal with these sources of danger in a playful way and without pressure.