Last summer when we first arrived in Vancouver (and before we had our Care Cards), my son Morgan managed to crack open his skull on a  “spinner” in the local public park. Ten stitches and many tears later, he was imploring me to let him back on the equipment, with the assurance that now he knew what not to do.

With some trepidation I said okay and was relieved to see that, although he didn’t slow down any, he was indeed more studied about how he managed himself. It was a small life lesson learned.

Would I choose to have my son injured as part of his investigation of the world around him? No. Did it turn out to be a productive experience? Yes. So, here is the question in our “risk averse” parenting world – how much risk (if any?) is a good thing?

If my children were trying to characterize me as a parent (or my students as a Principal) they would probably describe my approach to allowing them to take risks as somewhat akin to the inflatable cocoons that NASA has created to ensure a soft-landing for its Mars-bound spacecraft. When trees are being climbed or rock faces scaled, my heart becomes lodged permanently in my throat and I watch, absolutely certain, that the worst is bound to happen. As a result, protecting my children from risk is something that certainly works for me emotionally. But, to what extent does it work for them?

There is an on-going debate in Europe and North America that perhaps we are doing our children a disservice by making every effort to eliminate all risk from their day to day lives. A number of years ago, the Toronto Board of Education, based on a misreading of a consultancy report, dismantled more than half of its school playgrounds over the summer because it was felt that they were too dangerous. The slides were too high, the climbers too risky, and the swings presented an invitation for children to be launched into low orbit. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment was destroyed and the children were left with safe, albeit barren, schoolyards. There was even the case last year of an elementary Principal banning soccer from the playground for the fear that someone might accidentally get hit by a ball!

So, where is the line? How much risk is acceptable? There is a growing school of thought that children should be presented with some measured opportunities to take risks. Now, let’s be clear, I am not talking about creating hazardous or dangerous situations, but rather letting students push their limits a little bit, taking the risk of moving to the next level.

Every day, as adults, we engage in automatic risk assessments. “Can I make it across the crosswalk before the light changes?” “Can I proceed in my car at this stop sign?” “Is this black diamond run a little too treacherous for me to try?”

We base these decisions on past (and sometimes painful) experiences. Our assessments of personal risk are honed by decades of taking chances. In fact, how many times have we all prevented our children (often rightly!) from doing something risky that we regularly did as kids ourselves? At what point then does some measure of risk become “acceptable” or even “desirable”?

The term "acceptable risk" is defined as “the likelihood of an event whose probability of occurrence is small, whose consequences are so slight, or whose benefits (perceived or real) are so great, that individuals or groups in society are willing to take or be subjected to the risk that the event might occur”. The idea of acceptable risk is an acknowledgement of the fact that absolute safety is generally an unachievable goal. But are there potential benefits as well?

For our children, the exposure to acceptable risk might be a combination of the building of self-esteem and independence that comes form doing something that they thought was beyond their capabilities, and the growth of personal judgment that will increasingly allow them to make reasoned risk assessments for themselves. They can’t live their lives with us perched on their shoulders. The sooner that we can help them to develop the skills of rational analysis of risk, a knowledge of their own capabilities and limitations, and the ability to make good decisions based on both, the better we prepare them for the next stage in their lives.

It isn’t easy to let go, even a little, as parents. But sometimes we just have to take the risk!

A family’s world can change in an instant. Ten years ago last Friday, February 1, 2003, seven students were killed in an avalanche while backcountry skiing near Rogers Pass. The students were from Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School (STS) just south of Calgary. Strathcona-Tweedsmuir had been running these ski-trips for almost two decades without incident and, although this history gave the school a wealth of experience for organizing and running such adventures, it also laid the groundwork for potential tragedy.

In the months following this heart-breaking experience, the school enlisted outside help to analyze what could be done to avoid this kind of situation in the future. The final report, authored by Ross Cloutier looked at such issues as the level of risk management; governance and decision-making; planning and communication; and the general culture of the school within which such trips were part of the “tradition” and “expectation” of students in some of the more senior classes.

Perhaps the most telling comment, and one that has resonated with so many other schools over the years, was around the issue of “informed consent”. One of the questions that arose was the extent to which parents truly understood the nature of the risks involved. The report saw this as a mutual responsibility.

A school and/or its teachers should not be placed in the position where they are making decisions about what level of risk is acceptable to a family. Parents have the responsibility to make these decisions, but in order to do so they need access to a significant amount of program- and activity-related information. The parents also need to be diligent in carrying out their responsibility in this regard.

In this particular case, a great deal of information went home about the logistics of the trip and descriptions of the activities. However, the past practice of having parent information evenings had disappeared a few years earlier, sparked by the decreasing numbers of parents who attended and the general assumption that, after “all these years”, everyone knew about the nature of the experience and the potential risks involved.

In all of our schools we constantly run into the danger of a similar kind of complacency on the part of both staff and parents. As certain activities become “annual” and then become “a tradition”, there is always the tendency for a school to communicate less and less and for parents to rely on conversations with other families to get their information and reassurances.

As Cloutier noted:

During interviews with parents it became clear that many parents had not closely read the information provided them by the outdoor education program. Although numerous parents are under the impression that they signed a “waiver form” rather than a “consent form,” the general impression is that all parents trust [the school], and most parents would sign almost any form required by [the school] without a great deal of scrutiny. In numerous cases, parents signed these forms without reading them.

In the original it refers to “STS” rather than “the school” but I have changed it to emphasize the broad implication for all of our schools. Parents trust us. If the school sends home something to be signed, they sign it and send it back. That puts an extra level of responsibility on our shoulders to ensure not just that we inform parents clearly, but also that we make every effort to ensure that they read and understand what we are telling them.

At Kenneth Gordon we are often asking for parental consent to take a field trip, or increase service or bring in outside supports. It is always our responsibility to make certain that that consent is given in a “fully informed” fashion. As long as we keep those lines of communication wide open, and constantly check for understanding and concurrence, we have the best chance of working in partnership for the best interests of our students.

I spent a lot of time at STS during the period of this tragedy and the years of healing that followed and I have nothing but respect and admiration for the staff, administration and Board of the school and the ownership, responsibility and dedication that they demonstrated in moving forward afterward. This was an extreme and almost unimaginable tragedy. But the lessons learned are not confined simply to high risk or unusual ventures. They should provide guidance for all of our dealings with parents every day.

A family’s world can change in an instant; and, so can a school’s. Our thoughts go out to the Strathcona-Tweedsmuir community on this tenth anniversary of that dark day in February.