Good father award for protective play

The father placed a hat and shoes on his little boy and patted the child on the behind as the toddler turned and wobbled toward the park swings. A tube of dripping sun screen was stuck under the huge man’s arm pit. The white droplets were matting his long underarm hairs. Unaware and in pride, big daddy stood and watched his child head straight for danger. 

My heart was in my mouth and I was ready to jump up, but father calmly and quickly paced toward the two big kids on the swing and held up his hand, authoritatively, in a STOP fashion. Both swings slowed down as the swing riders dug their feet into the sand on the next down run. The father smiled and nodded in thanks at the swing stoppers and bent to pick up his little boy.

“Those swings are dangerous,” daddy cooed. “Good big kids for stopping and not knocking you over. Let’s go and play in the sand pit. It’s safer there.” As he walked off, he mouthed “thank you” to the kids on the swing and gave them a wink.

While I walked home, my mind processed the amazing child protection I had just witnessed. He did not yell at his child to force them into a catatonic state of fear and exploitative constipation, neither did he growl the big kids who were just doing what kids do. He took full adult responsibility for protecting his child positively and against all types of environmental dangers (hat, shoes, sun, etc). I so wished that there was a community child safety award to bestow upon this father. I wanted to showcase his best parenting practice and encourage others to strive toward such protective park play. In the absence of an award, I decided to blog it and publicly give that Dad the thumbs up.

Child protection is the everyday things we do to keep our kids safe. Dob in a child protector – who have you seen acting protectively toward children? Who deserves the thumb up?