My toddler is that kid. The one riding a plastic trike down the steepest part of the footpath like he’s in a Fast & Furious remake — no helmet, no hesitation, just pure chaos on wheels.
At first, I tried to stop it. My protective instincts kicked in hard. I’d sprint across the yard, shouting, panicking, imagining ER trips and broken bones. I thought it was my job to stop every risky move before it happened — because that’s what a “good” parent does, right?
But nothing I did could stop him.
He’s two, he’s fearless, and he’s 100% sensory-seeking. The more I tried to stop him, the more creative he got about finding ways to chase that input.
Then we got new neighbours. Lovely family. They have a five-year-old boy who started playing with my toddler out the front.
And that’s when I saw it — the stark difference between the two of them. My kid? Full tilt, launching off garden beds, turning the driveway into a stunt show. Their kid? More cautious. Calm. Nervous even.
And me? I was weirdly calm about it.
I could feel the neighbour’s anxiety creeping in as she watched my toddler attempt a backflip off the front step (okay, not really, but close). I could tell she was thinking, “What is happening?!” Meanwhile, I just sipped my coffee and offered a casual, “He’s fine — he does this all the time.”
It hit me in that moment: I wasn’t failing by letting him do it. I was parenting the kid I had — not the one I thought I was supposed to have.
He wasn’t misbehaving. He was seeking something. Input. Stimulation. The big feelings and physical intensity his body needed.
So I stopped trying to stop it, and instead, I started directing it.
“Ride down this hill, not that one.”
“Hold the handlebars tight.”
“Let’s wear your helmet today.”
I picked my battles. I stopped trying to calm the chaos and started working with it.
There is so much pressure to make our kids “fit” — into safe boxes, into polite norms, into what’s socially comfortable.
But my job isn’t to shrink him down. My job is to guide him while still letting him be fully, wildly himself.
So now when the neighbours look slightly horrified, I smile and say, “Yeah, he’s a bit wild. But we’re rolling with it.”
And I’ve never enjoyed parenting more.
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