Thursday, June 16, 2011

Dangerous Things for Kids

I recently read an article in the newspaper about a new book, camp, lecturer about children not being allowed to experience a little danger.  The book was called 50 Dangerous Things and the author (Gever Tulley) has a website as well.  I read through some of the things he had listed and happily (or suprisingly - depending upon how you view this approach) my kids have done at least 1/4th of the dangerous activities without any effort on my part.  Some dangerous activities I really don't consider dangerous, although there is always the possibility; like climbing a tree - yes you could fall out & get hurt, but you could also fall down in your house & get hurt.  It is kind of sad when kids need to be sent to a camp (he has those too - Tinkering School) to be able to experience things that many of us did (unsupervised) as a child.  Several years ago there was a movement of getting kids back outside to experience nature - hands on.  This is another area where our household does not lag behind - whether they like it or not - my kids are exposed & interact with the outdoors/nature/bugs/dirt, etc. a lot.  I'm not a total free-will parent, I do believe some things that children did in the past 40+ years ago may not have been the best/safest, but we did live through it.  There are things our kids can experiment with that we never dreamed of - microwaves for example:  one poster on the website wrote about nuking peeps - to see how big they would get.  As long as you don't go for the full out fire - and you don't mind a little cleanup - that sounds like something fun to watch.  Personally I think I will make an attempt to make the bomb in a bag with the vinegar & baking soda mixture, but outside.