The purpose with this essay is to examine and reflect on the child’s relationship to leisure pedagogue in after-school. The essay takes a starting point in a self-experienced story, a dilemma which highlights a problem regarding relationships and regulation of closeness and distance. The paper discusses three key elements of the dilemma; security, attachment and relationships. These three elements pervades the essay and functions as a mean to reflect on the story. The dilemma portrays a child which is intrusive and stressful for me as a pedagogue. The story also portrays how I start to doubt myself as a pedagogue as I dismiss this child rather harshly and I reflect on how I could have handled it differently. My story is also compromised by a different story, where I describe a day when my relationship to the same child is working well, a day when we enjoy each other’s company. I have chosen to put these two stories against each other and reflect on what worked poorly in one situation and what worked well in the other, and what our relationships looks like.

The core of the essay is a discussion regarding the story and the reflection on how a leisure pedagogue can work for a better connection to a child but also to regulate the intimacy to the child.