We loved this blog from Lisa at How to be a Domestic Disgrace – a brilliantly funny and astute blog about assessing risks for children, picked from the fantastic blogs on our Parent Bloggers Network.
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A risk assessment is a pointless thing. I was taught how to write one when I trained to be a teacher and very swiftly realised that it had nothing whatsoever to do with keeping your pupils safe and everything to do with covering your backside, should anything untoward happen at any point. I got marked down in a lesson observation once for failing to point out that there was a risk of pupils stabbing themselves in the eye with their pencils. Now, I’ve taught some kids who have done some pretty stupid things in class before, but poking pencils in their eyes is not one of them. Poking their fingers down their throats to see how far they could get them down there before vomiting* – now that’s something I’ve dealt with. Emptying the contents of a pencil sharpener into someone’s ear – I’ve dealt with that too (“Quick, turn your head on one side and give it a bash with your Numeracy book.”). Not pencils in eyes though.
The thing I’ve come to realise over years of working in schools and a couple of years at home with a small child is that you can never be fully aware of all the risks. You childproof everything only to find them scaling the curtains one day. You remove all small and pointy objects from a grab-able height only to discover them under the computer desk clutching a dismantled ball point pen, a biro spring protruding from one nostril.
My technique these days is to worry about the big stuff – heights, poisonous things, road safety – all that jazz. I don’t panic about the little things. Rory got hold of a box of cocktail sticks earlier. I continued to check my emails and let him get on with it in a “Meh, he’ll be fine. He’s not stupid enough to impale himself on one of them” sort of way. And he wasn’t. He did, however, create a lovely scale model of a porcupine by sticking them all in a nice fresh turd in his potty. Assess the risk of that, OFSTED.
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Netmums have been discussing and debating risk taking in the coffeehouse too. Read the thread here.
Really pleased to be here as blog of the week – thank you very much.
Lisa
love it!! totally agree, waste of time, just done a 5-page one for a new baby group. Anything can be a risk if you use it in the wrong way and what seems a risk to one person isn’t to another
Thank you so much for your blog, you had me laughing all the way through! As an Ex-Classroom Assistant and Childminder, I understand the joys of parenting also with a teen and a Pre-Schooler….
‘Risk Assessments’ are set for those who have enough common sense to see hazards and deal with them, funnily enough not for those who put children at risk have never compiled a risk assessment in their life.
Brilliant! Well said!
Love it, so true, the world is risk assessment mad Love it!
ha ha, fantastic xx
and there I was looking forward to a pic of the turd hedgehog! Brilliant blog, my morning is brighter for having read. x
brill. i had to do a risk assessment in college last week before using the sewing machine ”pah, i dont need this” i thought to myself before almost sewing my finger! ooops. i do think health and safety is a bit on the ridiculous side sometimes though