Why you should be happy to have an accident-prone kid

Avoiding discomfort and accidents at all costs also means avoiding living life to the fullest, writes Jane Fynes-Clinton. And that’s not something any parent should want for their kid.

A bruiser and a bull at a gate, I have become intimately acquainted with emergency room technological advances over my decades of life.

The unkind in my world have called me accident prone, they mean clumsy, but I prefer “injury prone” because it indicates more accurately that my cuts and bruises were the by-product of an active, energetic life.

Cotton-wool kids, bubble-wrapped babies: I have never had any truck with these in principle or in practice. In my experience, the current omnipresent approach of avoiding bruises and brushes with danger weakens not just people, but us as a collective.

Children without developed awareness of their own limitations or capabilities become wussy adults who resist moving without permission, who do not dare to adventure or to risk discomfort.

Psychologists tells us that a certain amount of danger is not just acceptable but desirable. Struggle develops resilience, toughness and sound decision-making skills.

Jaylyn and Lillian at the Russell Brown Adventure Park, Mosman Park. Picture: Colin Murty/The Australian

And we have an aching, urgent need for more of this among our young.

I make up for those who live careful, cosseted lives.

I started out life with a bang, being loud, active and reaching physical milestones early. I resembled a dodgem car in the enclosure of babyhood, hustling for a way forward and in a hurry to get there.

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My mother often boasted that by the age of two I had had so many black eyes she had stopped counting them.

What we did not count on was that my injury list did not stop growing once I properly got my balance. Breaks, scrapes, burns and cuts: I had more bruises than a Christmas Day stone fruit and a childhood that was literally stitched together.

It is not as if there was anything wrong with me — I did not have any explanatory medical defects, anyway. I was simply blessed with a combination of being well co-ordinated, having a love of sport and being virtually fearless.

Jane Fynes-Clinton at 12, after another misadventure.

I combined fun, creativity, risk: depending on your perspective, the high or low point of childhood was the year I turned 11. I broke both wrists at the same time by falling backward off a stool, and once they had healed, I dislocated my shoulder in a swimming race.

On the edge of puberty, that year I also had a series of fainting spells that crashed me to earth so fast one caused a concussion. I received the yearly award for being the most accident-prone kid in my grade.

My awareness of space and situation did not improve greatly, although in adulthood I am more conscious of thinking before acting in the presence of obvious danger.

But I have a lust for life and living actively. My skin is free of ink, because I reason that my scars are tattoos with far better stories.

In the past year, I have broken a rib in two places while surfing, had eight stitches in my forehead and cracked a knee bone.

I currently am bruised from hip to ankle, the stamp of a Canadian mountain’s approval for rising to the challenge of learning to snowboard. The slopes gave my thumb a bone-rattling kiss too, for good measure.

But throwing myself in and giving living a crack is the only way to go.

I think the father of Gonzo journalism Hunter S. Thompson said it best: “Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow, what a ride!’”

Indeed.

Dr Jane Fynes-Clinton is a journalism lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast.

@janefynes