Is your dc cautious or adventurous?

[linsei]

Ds1 has never been adventurous. When we went to WDW at age 2.25, he did not want to ride anything (not even the people mover). At age 4.25, he still does not want to ride very much. He just started riding the moving car/space ship things at the mall. He will not ride the train at the zoo, pumpkin farm, or mall. He would not ride the camel at the zoo, even though every other kid we were with rode. He asks me to push him on the swing, but before he even goes high, he begs me to stop. When we go to a pool, he does not want to leave the steps, even with me carrying him in the pool.

I respect his fear, but it does get annoying at times. I am grateful that I have never had to worry about him swinging from the light fixtures or anything crazy (!), but part of me is really frustrated that he does not think that kind of thing is fun. I'm wondering if he will ever like to do that kind of stuff?

So what about you?

[HIU8]

I'm wondering the very same thing. DS is 3 1/2. He will not swim (just barely gets in the pool), will not peddle a bike, learn to swing etc... Will this be how he just is, or will he eventually do these things? DD, on the other hand, is fearless, except for swinging in a baby swing. She is deathly afraid of that.

[pastrygirl]

Yes! My son just turned 2 and is very cautious. It took forever to get him on a swing last year, but this year he won't go near one. He won't go down the slides at the playground though he will walk across the platforms and go into the sandbox. We have a small climber here that he sometimes uses. Good thing I didn't invest in a full swingset/climber this year!

He won't go in the pool or lake; he'll just get his feet wet. He won't maneuver ride-on toys with his own feet; he pulls them up so he can be pushed by an adult. I'm thankful that he's not a wild child, but I'd love to see him have some fun!

[lovin2shop]

Well, my almost 6 year old asked me the other day if I thought it was "safer" to ride a bike with a helmet or ride a skateboard with a helmet.....

[o_mom]

DS1 is like that (4.75). He is very cautious and takes forever to get into doing something. What has really gotten him to start doing stuff is watching DS2 (who knows no fear). We got a tricycle when DS1 was around 3 yrs. He wouldn't touch it. Never rode it. Then at 24 months, DS2 got on and was riding it around. Within a week DS1 (then 3.5) was riding it all over the place including making 3 pt turns. Same thing with the balance bike and scooter. Didn't want to ride at all until his brother did.

He still doesn't want to do something if he has never tried it before. He will swing, but not too high. He would not go down the small waterslide at the pool. He won't go on the carousel at the museum.

I just go with the flow. It is annoying, especially when he can't make up his mind and we need to either do something or move on. So many times he will say he wants to ride something and the operator or other people are waiting and waiting for him. OMG - I just had a flashback to the "escalator incident" at the library. Said he wanted to go on, we get to it and he FREAKED OUT - after DS2 is on and I'm holding DS3. He's standing at the top screaming in the middle of this open air glass filled lobby. I had to go down with DS2. I'm yelling at him to just stay there and I'll come back up, but it's arranged so I have to go around and out of sight to get to the "up" escalator..... bad, bad scene there. I'm surprised they didn't take my card away.:o

[bubbaray]

My DD#1 is both cautious and adventurous. Any activity that Daddy encourages her to do, she's in like Flynn. She downhill skis (started at 2.5), rides a 2 wheeler bike, uses a scooter, etc. She has been in swimming lessons since age 5m, so she really d/n know any different.

Periodically, with me, she will be more cautious. Personally, I think its b/c she knows it drives me nuts, but that's for the BP. Just this past weekend, we were away on vacation at a lake and DH was not at the beach (was with DD#2 who was napping). I wanted DD#1 to go into the water with me. She refused. Said the waves (small) were scary, etc.. Wanted to keep her lifejacket on, etc. Finally, I got a bit sick of it, took off her PFD, and physically picked her up and took her out in deep water (up to my shoulders). We rode the waves back into the beach. She LOVED it. So, when DH showed up with DD#2 (after her nap), of course, DD#1 wanted to keep doing that. The next day, she wanted to play in the waves so much she went in fully clothed.

DD#2 appears to have no fear. Of course, she's a bit young for skiing and biking, so we'll have to see on those. But, its pretty much monkey see, monkey do and she just copies everything DD#1 does. I feel slightly faint just thinking about it.

With new social situations, however, DD#1 is quite cautious and more introverted & reserved, takes a while to warm up to situations. DD#2 appears to be far more of a social butterfly, even at a young age.

[linsei]

I'm feeling much better about it, keep the stories coming! I'm hoping that there is hope for ds2 ;) I was feeling guilty about being annoyed by it.

I forgot to mention the indecisiveness as an issue. There's nothing like holding up a long line of kids when he gets to the top of something and doesn't want to go. I hope someone can chime in with some "hope" of overcoming these fears. Otherwise, we'll have to take grandma (that does not like rides) everywhere on vacation, so ds1 will have someone to hang out with, but even Grandma will ride The People Mover!

[Piglet]

My DS1 is super-super cautious (just like I was as a kid and still am as an adult). DS2 is more adventurous. DD seems more adventurous too. The trend here seems to be that first-borns are cautious and subsequent kids are more adventurous, which seems to make sense since the younger siblings want to keep up with the older ones and try to do things earlier.

A few months ago I had a chat with my dad while DS1 was in the backseat of the car. I told my dad that DS2 was go-go-go. DS1 heard the converstaion and replied, "I am more stop-stop-stop." LOL - he was bang on!

From a coping standpoint, the best thing I have found is to just let it go. Don't expect the cautious ones to get over their fears that quickly. My hairdresser (who has 4 kids and is a great mom) once told me that she had to accept that her kids' fears were as real as her own fears. Imagine the one thing you are scared of and your reaction to it and think of your kids feeling the exact same way about all those "petty" fears that we normally dismiss. You would hate if your fears were dismissed. From a developmental viewpoint, I have found that DS1 lets go of his fears and over-cautiousness eventually, but not when I would expect him to. For example he was scared of slides for years. Suddenly and without warning, this year he goes on all of them. Granted he just turned 7 last week, but still, it is one less thing he is scared of and in the big picture, does it reall matter that he didn't go on a slide up until that point? Same goes for riding a bike. He uses training wheels and everyone else is getting rid of them. I stopped stressing about it for this year... maybe next year he will figure it out!?

[brittone2]

DS was inherently cautious, and still is to some degree. He wasn't a fan of playground equipment until he was 2.5-3, and that took some warming up to (he's 4.5)

DD is all about climbing, jumping, flipping, swinging, sliding...she's been climbing ladders since she was 13 months (with a spotter), she has been playing on "big kid" playground equip for months, etc. (she's 19 months). She is definitely a sensory seeker ;) She "gets into" stuff more often and requires closer supervision. When she was 12-13 months I'd find her on top of the table, climbing onto the countertops, etc. DS never did that stuff!

[KBecks]

Alek is adventurous. John is too early to tell at age 2. He likes to be carried a lot, and he follows Alek around so I don't know for sure.

[lisams]

DD is adventurous - which is totally not like DH or myself. I will say that the grass is not greener on the other side, I think I've had over a dozen minor heart attacks! She has no fear.

DS seems to be kind of in the middle. I think if he were a first born he would be cautious, but he's had the influence of his wild natured sister!

I'm actually kind of jealous of those of you with cautious little ones!

[egoldber]

Sarah is a bit of a mix. She is very cautious about some things and a bit of a perfectionist. OTOH she has always loved motion, rides, carrousels, etc.

Amy is a complete and total daredevil. Doesn't know the meaning of the word fear. She is going to give me a heart attack.

[Moneypenny]

DD is physically very cautious and socially very adventurous. She wasn't willing to go down stairs without holding someone's hand until just recently and she's nearly 4! But, she throws herself without abandon into any new social situation (which really makes me fear for her teenage years!!!!!).

[elliput]

On Tuesday, DD (3.5yo) was jumping from the back of the sofa onto the cushions which she had re-arranged onto the floor. I'd say she is adventurous, but I knew that at 18 months when she would go down the twisty slide at the playground head first.

[kedss]

ds is very cautious as well, he finally went on a motorized carousel, before he wanted to get on them but only if it wasn't moving very fast. he likes the swings, only he goes on his stomach. I think for ds, its a question of control, like he likes pushing the merry go round at the park but doesn't like being on it when its going very fast.

my brother who is 13 years younger than me didn't learn to swing until he was 12, and he turned out just fine. :)

[beansprout13]

I can't figure out what DS1 is...

One one hand, he won't go swimming in a pool because he is scared, and is very cautious about riding his bike in the road (nervous about cars). He is very cautious about things like spiders, spider webs and the like.

On the other hand, he loves rides - the faster the better. He loved the roller coaster at the carnival and always wants the swings on the playground to go higher and faster. But, on the other hand, again, he is nervous of twisty slides at the playground. I guess I truly can't quite figure him out!

[Mommy Of A Little Angel]

Adventurous for sure! This is the kid that will literally jump off anything (and always sticks her landings!) Haha, I think other people at the play area nearly have heart attacks when they see her. I have had to learn to get used to it. She is safe, knows her surroundings, but just daring! She loves rides too. She rides all the rides at Sesame Place and SeaWorld and loves them.

[Melanie]

One of each. :)

[aa2mama]

DS is a complete daredevil and parenting him has been about preventing him from hurting himself.

DD is much more cautious. She wants to be held constantly and is afraid of a lot of things.

Two very different children. It makes me realize just how much of their basic temperaments traits are inborn. You can work at molding what they've got, but it makes me realize just how much they really are their own little people from day one.

[lizajane]

honestly, count your blessings. i totally get it that it is very frustrating that he won't try new things. i know it is very hard to help reassure a fearful child. dylan is terrified of deep water after falling in and being rescued a number of times. but he can swim freestyle in shallow water. but, to continue with the swimming example, when he was a toddler at the pool and afraid to go in, i could sit back and relax while he played around the edges of the pool. schuyler, on the other hand, intentionally went under water at age 14 months and did NOT want to come back up. taking him to the pool was exhausting until this year, as he can now swim.

having a child with ADHD behavior (need to get to school to truly evaluate him) is REALLY, REALLY hard. not just because it is SO exhausting to keep up with him, keep him safe, improve his manners, keep his voice down, get him to COME when i ask him to... but also because every other parent in the world (who does not have an ADHD kid) wants you to CONTROL YOUR CHILD when he is uncontrollable. it is very frustrating to get constant unwanted advice about how to tell him no, punish him, scold him, SPANK him, etc etc. (we do not hit.) i get evil stares, constant comments, even scolding by other parents who think i do not care about his safety. a mall mom CHEWED ME OUT and threatened me because i didn't make him stop climbing on the kids' play equipment. preschool moms run screaming to tell me that he is up in a tree. (SO not news to me...) a lady just today stormed out of panera bread, telling her friend loudly (so i could hear) "I CANNOT TAKE THIS NOISE ANYMORE, I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE." this after schuyler sang quietly and played with his brother in the booth. honestly, they were behaving JUST FINE and another family even told me that they were highly offended by the other mean lady and that they kids were GREAT.

so. sigh. clearly this is a hot topic for me right now. and i am NOT SAYING AT ALL that it isn't very hard to have a timid child. it is!! dylan is often timid! but knowing the alternative... i would choose the challenge of helping a timid child overcome fears than the challenge of getting my 5 year old down from the TWO STORY TALL tree he has just climbed.

[bethie_73]

I haven't read the other posts yet, but DH is the opposite of cautious. :ROTFLMAO:

I realize how frustrating it must be, but sometimes I wish DS didn't NEED to see what would happen if he jumped off the table and tried to make it to the couch. For his second birthday we got him a tricycle and all he wanted was a scooter. He tries to take the neighborhood kids skateboards. He loves horseback riding, and when he swings he says "higher mommy I'm a plane".

[pb&j]

DS is pretty cautious. But he really surprises me every now and then. Like, he will leap off the side of the pool. And ride his ScuttleBug down the driveway at seriously breakneck speed (and yes, he has crashed into the garage door on occasion).

But going up and down stairs, he always holds my hand, goes extremely slowly and repeats "I be verrrrrrrry careful." Or he asks me to carry him. And the twisty slide really weirds him out. And it took special coaching by DH for him to go through the sprinkler.

But he loves going high on the swing, and really surprised me at a carnival this spring by begging to ride one of the little kiddie rides by himself over and over again.

Some of the things that he loves to do now (the pool, the swings) took a lot of gentle introduction. I really appreciate that he is not a wild and crazy daredevil. Neither DH nor I are and I seriously wouldn't know how to cope with a kid who was jumping off furniture and running into the street all the time. Though it was a little embarrassing that he was the only kid who cried during Sprinkler Day at day care! ;)

[KrisM]

DS is adventurous. He insisted on learning to ride a 2-wheeler 3 days after turning 4 years old. Now, he tries to ride with no hands. Last year, he was jumping into pools and easily going underwater. This year, he's diving into the pool. Ugh.

DD is more cautious, but still fairly adventurous. She's a big climber and tries to get places she really shouldn't. But, she's only 2, so it's harder to tell for sure.

[niccig]

DS is a bit of both. He's a climber so can get to anything if he wants to. He can also open locks, use a key etc, so he just gets into things. I actually get sick of my friend saying "my DS would never do that". MIL told SIL to ask me about baby proofing as DS was opening gates and cabinet locks. His curiousity gets the better of him. But then he's cautious in new social situations and with some things that I don't understant the caution and thats when he tells me that he's too little to do it.

[ThreeofUs]

Well, DS used to be extremely cautious - about people, situations, water, etc. He was always really good physically and a fanatic at the playground, but anything he didn't quite understand was a non-starter. He would cling to me, or to DH, with a stranglehold, and assert his need to exit the situation. At least he gave us detailed directions on what he needed!

Now, at 3.5+, he's starting to loosen up. For example, he and DH are taking swimming lessons together. While they don't exactly take much part in the class - DS really can't stand the tedium of nursery songs, they do have a lot of fun with other people and as a team in a very different environment.

It's really great to watch him flower. For so long, we were sad for him that so much of the world was too scary or too something for him to join.

[mdb78]

I would say dd is mostly adventurous. She loves climbing the playground and going down the slides. The first time we took her to Disneyland, she enjoyed the rides- she didn't seem scared at all even after those 2 drops on Pirates of the Carribean. She is a climber and she loves climbing up our stairs. Oh and you know she so wants to go head first down the stairs. We're trying to teach her to turn around and go backwards, but she's pretty stubborn! She knows how to get off the couch and our bed, but sometimes she tries to go head first and we have to grab her legs. Then she complains.. lol..

Her cautious side shows when she's in a new place, unlike some kids that take off running, she has to take it all in first. If we go to a big party with lots of people, she'll have the same serious facial expression. We do think that she is social though, because she doesn't cry and doesn't mind it when she gets passed around.
Oh, just remembered, she is cautious about the tile floor in our house. Up until she was 9 months old, we lived in an apartment with all carpet. She was totally fearless. Now the place where we live now is all tile. She had a bad fall and felt how hard the tile was. I kind of think the tile is part of the reason why she just started getting confident in walking. She started cruising right before nine months and we all thought (including our ped) that she would be walking before she turned one, but we were all wrong. Its funny because if she were standing up anywhere else (like in the bathtub), she would be fine, but if she was standing on the tile, you could see her knees shake! lol..

[citymama]

My 2 yr. old DD is a mix - she is adventurous in terms of new experiences, new foods, and is a free spirit, generally. But she is somewhat cautious when it comes to some kinds of physical adventure - e.g. cautiously stepping down from a high surface when many other kids just leap off it, completely rejecting her friend's balance bike based on a 2 minute experience (she later got into it), absolutely refusing to play ball with us until very recently....But she can be adventurous as well...she has sat on a big kid's swing since 15 months (and never looked back), climbed on big kid playground equipment since around the same time, etc etc. I think the main thing with her is she will easily reject/give up something if she thinks she can't master it, and moves on to something else.

They're all SOOOO different - just like we are!

(I was an utterly cautious kid - and still am a cautious adult, so I can relate to your son's personality!)

[cairo06]

With DD its a mix. She'll go into the pool, but not the ocean. If there are older kids around the playground she'll follow their act without a hesitation. If we are alone she is more cautious. I'm just glad she has somewhat gotten over her fear of bugs. Last summer she always wanted to go inside if she found an ant or fly near her sandbox - we weren't out much.

Its too early to tell with DS yet.

[Happy 2B mommy]

DD is a pretty adventurous 20 month old. A little cautious with new things at first, but once she tries it, or sees how other kids do the activity, she's all over doing it, and usually higher and/or faster.

Last week I gave her a sippy cup to keep her occupied while I started making lunch. After a minute I hear her call "Milk, miiiiilllllllk!"

Me: "You have your milk."

DD: "MIIIIIILLLLLLLLK!"

I turn around to find DD had climbed into her high chair all by her self. Her cup of milk was on the floor.

She also has started to climb onto the coffee table and wants to jump off. Thank goodness her jumping doesn't involve her feet actually leaving the ground yet.

[anamika]

Thanks for starting this thread. My DD is also super cautious and I was starting to worry!

[maestramommy]

Dora is definitely on the cautious side. She does ride some of the rides at Disney, but her fav is the carousel. And she loves swings. But as far as climbing around on the playground, not much at all. It took her months to get into going on the slide in her toddler class (without holding my hand), and many on and off attempts to climb up on a ladder. She is cautious around new people too. It always takes her a while to warm up to new people, situations, and everything in general.

Arwyn, OTOH, is much more adventurous, and tends to barrel into things. Curiously enough, she doesn't particularly like swings, but she loves going down slides. Even though she's still not walking, she loves climbing and clambering over stuff. She's very social too. Loves to make eyes at and grin at people, wave, all that.