I bought a tractor for the new land about a month ago. My daughter took a lot of interest in it and is picking up distance safety and how to help out on the ground without being in danger zones and always being visible. She loves it and loves being involved in the work. And I love that she loves it. So, I’m keeping the momentum going by converting my 10-year-old riding lawn tractor into her first
tractor. The seat switch was bypassed, the brake start was bypassed, throttled down, and the seat moved all the way forward. She’s off!
Before the safety Karens jump in; this is not dangerous. It is throttled down, and when you take your foot off the forward position, it stops on its own. I think this is teaching responsibility. I tell my daughter every time she asks for something that she can have whatever she wants for the rest of her life….so
long as she earns it. If she wants to continue to use her tractor, she needs to treat it with respect and earn the responsibility of using it.
Another approach I’ve found empowering for her is to stop telling her to be careful and start saying to trust her mind and body. When I told her to be careful doing something, she would be timid, as if there was an automatic danger just because of what I said. Telling her to trust her mind and trust her
body has gotten her to loosen up in normal situations and better identify stuff where she should slow down. I love the saying, “Never interrupt a child doing dangerous things carefully.” Of course, I’m not giving her a machete or a flame thrower any time soon..
