https://blog.ojakee.com/tags/personal-safety/Recent content in Personal Safety on Ojakee Parenting BlogHugo -- 0.160.1en-usFri, 10 Apr 2026 16:13:21 -0400https://blog.ojakee.com/posts/life-ready-parenting-s2-understanding-personal-safety-and-risk-assessment/Tue, 31 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0800https://blog.ojakee.com/posts/life-ready-parenting-s2-understanding-personal-safety-and-risk-assessment/<p>Last Tuesday morning, my seven-year-old daughter Maya came running into the kitchen with a scraped knee and a story about falling off her bike at the end of our driveway. As I cleaned the wound and applied a bandage, she looked up at me with those wide, trusting eyes and asked, &ldquo;Mom, how do I know when something is too dangerous to try?&rdquo; That question stopped me cold. I realized in that moment that I had spent years telling Maya to &ldquo;be careful&rdquo; and &ldquo;watch out&rdquo; without ever actually teaching her what careful looks like or how to assess risk for herself. We had moved to our new neighborhood in Portland, Oregon just six months prior, and Maya was still learning the boundaries of our street, the rhythm of the crosswalk signals, and which houses had dogs behind fences. I had been so focused on keeping her safe through constant supervision that I had forgotten my real job was to teach her to keep herself safe.</p>