My wife Charlane and I have developed our distinct parenting style over 3 years of having Charlotte. The distinguishing trait of our approach seems to be a combination of patience and high risk tolerance, as friends who hang out with us like to point out.

We would be walking down a street after brunch with friends and Charlotte would take her time walking behind us. You wouldn’t say she’s tailing us because she would very often stop bothering to track whether we are still just ahead and just focus on whatever is interesting at the moment. She stops every 10 seconds or so to notice, inspect, and if possible, touch things around her. It’s fascinating to witness a child’s mind.

Meanwhile, the adults ahead just want to continue our conversation about inflation on our way to the train station.

In these situations, parents characteristically do one of two things:

1. Rush the child, telling them to “stop wasting time” because “we’re going to be late”
2. Pick the child up and put them into their expedited-transport-stroller and push them ahead.

I’m guilty of having done both at some point, but friends tell us often enough that we succeed in not doing either that I think we’re exceptionally patient parents.

What we do instead is stand up ahead and continue our conversation while observing her from the distance.

A minute can pass before she looks up and notices that we’re up ahead. She then catches up to us and the cycle repeats when she notices another interesting thing.

So that’s an aspect of patience at work as parents.

The other apparent hallmark of our parenting approach is endowing freedom by maintaining a high risk tolerance.

Charlotte once fell off the back of my campervan as a 1 year old. That was a complete miscalculation on my part when I assumed that a piece of cardboard wedged between an open and unopened rear door would be solid enough to prevent a child from slipping through. That’s stupid risk and it’s not the kind of risk tolerance I’m talking about.

What I am talking about is climbing things that to an adult looks precarious. Things that you’d put a 30-50% probability of ending in some kind of injury, like a toddler trying to climb up a chair in a restaurant, or scaling one of those pyramid nets in the playground without adult assistance.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen extremely worried looks on other parents’ faces when we let Charlotte do these things. Every time we’re out, it’s bound to happen, because as I said, our risk tolerance is deliberately set very high.

Are we not worried that she’ll get hurt? Well, of course we are. But we have agreed to accept the risk of injury for the lessons that our child will gain from running those risks.

Our rule is: as long as something is not likely to be fatal, let them do it.

Combine that with our trained patience and our parenting mantra, at least when it comes to daily life with our toddler, is this:

As long as it’s not likely to be fatal, let them do it. And if you’re not truly needed elsewhere, let them take their time.

Over time, I’ve noticed how this approach has helped Charlotte grow more self-confident. She wants to do everything by herself, and at a bit over 3 years old, she is managing to accomplish tasks independently most of the time. Not only that, but she conducts her business safely because she’s actually experienced the opposite where she got hurt.

I think this is how you prevent a kid from having a morbid curiosity that is unleashed the moment you’re not around.

This is safer for them in the long run.

This is also the recipe for a richer life, because you’re stopping them less often from doing something. Every parent knows that kids are happy to do anything and everything. The less we restrict, the more fun they have, and the more they learn overall.

Raising a child to be confident in her body and ability is much, much more important than preventing a few scrapes on the elbows and being on time for appointments.