Watching your child's forays into the big, bad world can be a nerve-wracking experience as a parent. It can be difficult to get used to their increased confidence as they tackle ever more challenging obstacles.

But in my case, there is a particular angle on this subject that comes up frequently in conversation. People who know me often ask if it's difficult for me to watch Rosalie climbing on to things. At 3 years old, this is something that she is doing more and more every day, but the reason people ask is not just because it is more difficult for me to pluck a frightened child from a climbing frame when I am in a wheelchair.

Having suffered my spinal cord injury as a result of falling from a tree, my story has echoes of childhood in most people's memories. I was a trained tree surgeon rather than an toddler, but that would seem to suggest that a child is even more likely to come to harm. Mind you, I used to come off my bicycle from time to time, although it's been many years since I last got a marble stuck up my nose or jumped off a moving swing holding a parka for a parachute.

Rosalie is starting to climb differently. Up to now she has been relatively cautious, especially in comparison to her more intrepid, not to say fearless, cousin who gleefully swallow dives from garden furniture into two inches of water in a paddling pool, an inch for each year he's been alive. But as she gets bigger, Rosalie is climbing out of my reach more frequently.

I encourage her and I try to help her to stay calm. I hope that she enjoys climbing stuff as much as I have. But personal experience of the consequence makes any risk more real, and if you want to talk consequences, then my paraplegia is a corker. And the whole issue becomes even tougher when I have to acknowledge the impact of those consequences on my own parents.

My hope is that by helping her, I can help her to be aware of the risks and make calm decisions. But I also hope that she can enjoy the same things that I enjoyed, and that I can learn how to live with a normal level of parental anxiety.

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