Were you a "free-range kid?"
Free-Range Kids are largely left alone to explore the world independently. That includes trying things out, making mistakes, finding joy in exploration and experimentation, getting hurt on occasion, surviving those occasions, learning from errors, and growing up confident and competent in handling oneself.
We boomers were free-range kids. Gone after school until sunset and dinner time, off doing who knows what, who knows where, with whomever we pleased.
Riding bikes miles away and speeding downhill in t-shirts, jeans, and flip-flops with no helmets (bike helmets weren't yet a thing; we wouldn't have worn them anyway). Cimbing across tall hills, shooting BB guns at soda cans, throwing rocks and clods of dirt at each other (and getting hit, painfully, on occasion). Exploring underground rain tunnels and coming up out of manholes, scaling tall school buildings after dark, hiking cross-country in Boy Scouts with only a map and compass, etc. All this was unremarkable and everyday.
Along these lines,
50 Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do) is medicine for modern parental paranoia.
From the amazon description:
"In a time when children are too often coddled, reminds readers that climbing trees is good for the soul, and that a pocket knife is not a weapon. Full of exciting ways children can explore the world around them, this book explains how to “Play with Fire” and “Taste Electricity” while learning about safety. With easy-to-follow instructions, it includes:
• Activities, like walking a tightrope
• Skills, like throwing a spear
• Projects, like melting glass
• Experiences, like sleeping in the wild
As it guides you through these childlike challenges and more, the book will inspire the whole household to embrace a little danger."
Other recommended "dangerous" activities include learning to whittle, tie knots, make fires, stand on the roof, find beehives, go underground, perform on the street, cross town on public transit, sleep in the wild, make a rope swing, climb a tree, play with dry ice, drop from high places, and more.
Along the same lines, I recommend
The Coddling of the American Mind, by Jonathan Haidt.
Haidt's book picks up where 50 Dangerous Things leaves off, and elucidates how unnecessarily frightened helicopter parenting – smothering kids with constant supervision – is actually far more harmful to young people than allowing them to take calculated risks and build confidence and independence in the process.
An important book for over-anxious parents raised by over-anxious parents.
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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.
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