What Bear Grylls’ Parenting Post Taught Me About Letting Kids Take Risks
The first time I noticed it was on a cold Tuesday at the playground. My son was seven, hanging from the top bar of the climbing frame, feet dangling. Another mother next to me stiffened. “Aren’t you going to say something?” she asked. I was supposed to say careful. I usually said careful. But I didn’t, because I’d spent the whole week thinking about a Bear Grylls post someone had shared in our family group chat.
The video wasn’t anything dramatic. It was Bear Grylls and one of his sons, both kneeling next to a stream, trying to build a fire. But he said something about parenting that I couldn’t shake. He said that if you spend your whole childhood telling kids they’ll get hurt, they never learn how to deal with getting hurt. He let his boys climb trees, fall off bikes, and swim in cold water. He didn’t mean no helmets or no supervision. He meant that the small hurts were the training ground.
Now, I’m not a wilderness survival person. I don’t know how to tell edible berries from poisonous ones. My idea of outdoor skill is knowing which side of the slide gets too hot. But that post made me think about all the times I jump in before my son has even asked for help. At the playground, at home, during homework. I hover. I say “be careful.” I fix the block tower he hasn’t asked anyone to fix.
So that Tuesday, I made myself stand still. My son looked down at me. He wasn’t stuck. He was testing something. I could see him calculating whether he could swing his leg up to the next bar. He didn’t need me. He just needed me not to do the thing I always do.
He fell.
It wasn’t a bad fall. He landed on the woodchips, got a scrape on his palm, and looked more embarrassed than hurt. I didn’t run over. I waited. He stood up, brushed off his hands, and looked at the bar again. Then he climbed back up and made it.
That small moment was the start of me changing something in how I parent. Not drastically. I still say “careful” sometimes. I still catch him before he falls when it’s a real danger. But I’ve started asking a different question before I rush in: “Is this his problem to solve, or mine?”
It sounds small, but it’s made a difference. The thing I learned from that post is that when we always step in, we take away a child’s chance to develop their own sense of risk. They need to feel a little fear, try something, fail, and realize they can cope.
I found the actual post later and re-read it a few times. The message wasn’t “let your kids be reckless.” It was more like “give them something to work with.” If they only know that an adult is always there to catch them, they don’t learn how to catch themselves. And as they get older, the risks get bigger. A teenager who has never made a mistake around safety until age fourteen is more likely to freeze or panic when a real situation happens than a kid who has already fallen off a few walls.
So what does that look like in daily life? For us, it’s been small.
I’ve started letting my son walk a few paces ahead of me on the pavement. I still watch, but I don’t call out warnings unless a car is coming. He’s learning to check the kerb himself. At the park, I stay on the bench instead of standing under the monkey bars. I don’t say anything unless he asks for help. If he does ask, I try to ask him first: “What’s your plan?” Or: “Where are your feet right now?” Those questions are better than “be careful” because “be careful” doesn’t tell a child anything. It just makes them anxious and more likely to freeze.
At home, I’ve done the same with things like cooking. He wants to cut a banana with a butter knife. My instinct is to say no, because it’s messy and it’s faster if I do it. But I let him. I showed him once where the knife should go, and now he does it himself. He’s not going to lose a finger. He might make a mushy banana, but that’s okay.
The hard part is the feeling. Letting your child fall, even a small fall, goes against every instinct. Part of me is convinced that if I don’t hover, someone will judge me. Another part thinks I’m being lazy. I’ve listened to that voice a lot. It’s easier to be the parent who warns and catches and fixes. It’s harder to stand back and let your kid struggle.
But the evidence is everywhere. When I watch him doing his homework now, I notice how often he looks up at me before trying to read a word. He’s used to me giving him the answer before he’s had a chance to work it out. I’ve been doing a version of “catching him” with everything. So now I say, “Try it, and if it doesn’t work, I’m here.” Sometimes he gets it wrong. That’s fine. The point is he’s starting to look at the word first instead of looking at me.
Teachers do this too, and I’ve seen it in his classroom. His teacher calls it “wait time.” When she asks a question, she waits a few seconds before accepting an answer. It feels like silence, but it’s the space where the child’s brain is actually working. As a parent, I’ve started using the same idea. Instead of giving a solution, I wait. Sometimes ten seconds feels long, but it’s exactly the amount of time he needs.
There are still times when I get it wrong. Last week he was trying to climb a low tree at his cousin’s house, and I said, “Don’t, you’ll fall.” He looked at me, disappointed, and climbed down. I saw myself in that moment. I had cancelled his confidence because I didn’t want to deal with the fallout. The safety issue wasn’t real. The tree was three feet high. I was just tired.
We went back the next afternoon. I didn’t say don’t. I said, “I’m right here.” He climbed it, slipped once, caught himself, and kept going. He was so proud that he made me take a photo of the tree. I still have it.
I think that’s what that Bear Grylls post did for me. It gave me permission to stop being scared all the time. Not to stop being careful — I still check things. But to let my son do the important work of learning what his body can handle. The grass stains and scrapes are not signs of failure. They are the normal costs of figuring out the world.
I don’t know if I’ll ever feel fully comfortable watching him take risks. I expect I’ll always flinch a little. But I’ve started trusting that he can manage more than I thought. He’s going to fall. He’s going to be okay. And I’ll be there, closer than I look, but not in the way.
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