Unsafe holiday safety

Kiaras Gharabaghi

December is always an interesting month for kids. For many, it’s Christmas month, and that means presents, sweets, and lots of visits to and from family. For others, it’s about looking forward to Hanukah, the presents associated with that festival, and typically still visits to and from family. Those more partial to Kwanza also get the family effect and usually great food. I am sure that there are other festivals and celebrations during December, and I am sure that most would have experienced something similar to what the Christmas, Hanukah and Kwanza enthusiasts have experienced – the growing trend to connect to all types of celebrations a rigid and fanatical safety regime.

I always felt somewhat alone and isolated in my advocacy for unsafe activities and irresponsible risk taking. I never really minded that much, because I could always find some like-minded individuals amongst the youth I was working with. As it turns out, for many youth living away from home in group homes, shelters or on the street, December is overrated anyway. Those family visits often don’t happen, and when they do, they rarely turn out as wonderful and warm as one might have hoped for. And so for these youth, holiday activities frequently sidestep the latest safety advisories, and involve more liberating experiences that admittedly are probably designed to hide a great deal of pain.

While the unique circumstances of the youth engaged with our profession might require a more critical reflection about safety, physical and otherwise, it is worthwhile to reflect for a moment on the impact of safety considerations on the concept of celebration. There has already been a lively and increasingly public discussion about the pitfalls of excessive safety in the lives of children. Michael Ungar, for one, has been talking about this a lot lately. He argues that in keeping kids safe, we are also diminishing their learning about resilience. In the absence of adversity how will kids determine their limits and what risks are manageable and what might be not only unsafe but outright dangerous? Sure, the focus on safety will keep kids healthy, prevent broken bones, and protect them from danger. But will it instill in them the ability to make decisions under duress?

Times of celebration are not typically associated with duress; in fact, these terms often appear as oxymoronic. I would suggest, however, that celebrations are precisely the kind of situations where the opportunity to experience unsafe situations safely and in a positive context presents itself. To this end, I want to share my childhood experiences of a popular festival that takes place in Iran on the last Wednesday of the year (the lunar year, that is). The festival is called Charharshanbe Suri, which literally translated means Wednesday Red. The festival has no particular religious significance; it is based on traditions related to the age of the Zoroastrians. It is, in a sense, a festival of lights, not unlike Hanukah, but the specific activities related to the festival are quite different. The basic ingredients for celebrating Chaharshanbe Suri are a pile of wood, some oil, and matches. Everywhere in the streets people light fires ranging from smaller, camp fire sized to fairly large, barn fire sized ones. And then they jump through the fire, not infrequently setting ablaze their hair and destroying a wide range of skin cells especially around the ankles. As a child growing up in Iran, I actively participated in these celebrations, and my parents along with all of my relatives, the neighbours, and total strangers who happened to come across our fire cheered on me and all the other kids.

Looking back, it seems rather strange that responsible adults would encourage children, often as young as two years old, to jump through open flames. And not just once, but over and over again, openly challenging the flames to reach higher and to burn hotter. More than once I landed in the flames, burning this or that part of my body and finding relieve in the blocks of ice that someone seemed to always bring along in anticipation of precisely these kinds of injuries.

Michael Ungar makes the point that our standards with respect to safety for children are significantly influenced by cultural contexts and traditions. What seems profoundly risky and unsafe in one place or one culture appears as perfectly normal and well within the realm of safety elsewhere. There is no “truth” that can lay claim to what constitutes reasonable safety. But there might be some times when it is safer to be unsafe than at other times. And I would suggest that the holidays are just such a time.

If we consider some of the factors that mitigate high risk situations for children and youth, surely we would include many factors that are more present during the holidays than at any other time: goodwill in communities and neighbourhoods, family presence including extended family, good nutrition, and of course, a desire on the part of children to be present within the family, if for no other reason than to receive gifts. Youth are much less likely to be condemned for the consequences of their bad decisions with respect to safety during the holidays than at any other time of the year. Since schools are typically closed, bad decisions resulting in injuries are less likely to result in missed school days. And late night adventures can actually be accommodated by early afternoon wake ups rather than the usual fights related to getting everybody out of bed in the morning.

Perhaps our cultural context in North America won’t allow us to send children jumping through open flames anytime soon. But it might be time to loosen up a little on the safety regulations in our homes and our public spaces that apply to children and youth. I learned just recently that many schools in Ontario prohibit children from engaging in snowball fights, even on that magical day after the first snowfall. This reminded me of Janus Korzak’s wonderful story called When I Was Little Again, written in 1925 and set in Poland. Korzak describes in detail and through the eyes of a child the exhilaration and near-magical spirit that falls upon childhood during the snowball fight after first snow fall. And he also describes the rules and limits that are set by children for children as the fight evolves. Safety considerations should not rob children of these kinds of experiences.

Celebrations of any kind and in all traditions and cultures revolve around the human spirit; these are times of gathering, of making connections and reaffirming relationships. Celebrations remind us that our social human nature is a good thing; that we have capacity to support, nurture and also forgive each other. I can’t imagine a better time for children to take risks and to explore possibilities that otherwise are denied to them; and I can’t imagine a safer time for children to be just a little bit unsafe than during the holidays. And with that, I would like to wish everybody a wonderfully unsafe holiday season.