I have read on some other
Blogs, for example about the how it was for us growing up versus what the kids nowaday experience. for example this gem..
I and my brother rode in the back of my Dads 1970 Dodge "Camper Special" in middle Georgia and Alabama in the late 70's all the time. Dad scored a "bench seat" from somewhere and dropped it in the bed so we could ride in relative comfort. I used to sit on top of the fender-well or sit against the cab or if we were not on the interstate, we would sit in the corner of the bed by the tailgate and it was awesome. I have a pic of my son in the back of my "disgruntled Veteran" Ranger and that would be the closest he would ever come to really riding in the back of my truck.
This was from a few years ago when the Couch went to the "happy Hunting Ground" A.K.A. "Good will". My son rode in the cab with me. He so wanted to ride in the bed, but the law is real strict about such a thing so my son misses out on something magical because of the "Nanny State" and their rules.
A lot of what is shown here my son has done with the Boy Scouts, This is one of the things that I like about the Boy Scouts, besides teaching him the rules to be an honorable man, he has the experience that a lot of his peers don't get and they miss out on.
I shamelessly clipped this from
"Art of Manliness"
Even though the modern world isn’t any more dangerous than it was thirty or forty years ago, it
feels like a more perilous place. Or, more accurately, we inhabit the world today in a way that’s much more risk averse;
for
a variety of very interesting and nuanced reasons, our tolerance for
risk, especially concerning our children’s safety, has steadily declined.
So we remove jungle gyms from playgrounds, ban football at recess,
prohibit knives (even the butter variety) at school, and would rather
have our kids playing with an iPad than rummaging through the garage or
roaming around the neighborhood.
Unfortunately, as we discussed in-depth earlier this year,
when you control for one set of risks, another simply arises in its place.
In this case, in trying to prevent some bruises and broken bones, we
also inhibit our children’s development of autonomy, competence,
confidence, and resilience. In pulling them back from firsthand
experiences, from handling tangible materials and demonstrating concrete
efficacy, we ensconce them in a life of abstraction rather than action.
By insisting on doing everything ourselves, because we can do things
better and more safely, we deprive kids of the chance to make and test
observations, to experiment and tinker, to fail and bounce back. In
treating everything like a major risk, we prevent kids from learning how
to judge the truly dangerous, from the simply unfamiliar.
Fortunately, we can restore the positive traits that have been
smothered by overprotective parenting, by restoring some of the
“dangerous” activities that have lately gone missing from childhood. The
suggestions below on this score were taken both from
50 Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do), as well as memories from my own
more “free range” childhood.
If you grew up a few decades back, these activities may seem “obvious”
to you, but they’re less a part of kids’ lives today, and hopefully
these reminders can help spark their revival.
While each contains a element of danger and chance of injury, these
risks can be thoroughly mitigated and managed by you, the parent: Permit
or disallow activities based on your child’s individual age, maturity
level, and abilities. Take necessary precautions (which are common sense
and which I’m not going to entirely spell out for you; you’re a
grown-up, not a moron). Teach and demonstrate correct principles, and
supervise some practice runs. Once you’ve created this scaffolding of
safety, however, try to step back and give your child some independence.
Step in only when a real danger exists, or when your adult
strength/dexterity/know-how is absolutely necessary. And don’t be afraid
to let your kids fail. That’s how they learn and become more resilient.
In return for letting your children grapple with a little bit of
healthy risk, the activities below teach motor skills, develop
confidence, and get kids acquainted with the use of tools and some of
the basic principles of science. Outside any educational justification,
however, they’re just plain
fun — something we’ve forgotten can be a worthy childhood pursuit in and of itself!
Play With Fireworks
Playing with fireworks is not only a fun way to celebrate freedom, it
teaches your kids how to responsibly handle fire and to have a healthy
respect for exploding objects. Unfortunately, thanks to stringent
fireworks laws and parents freaked out from viral stories of children
losing eyeballs while lighting Roman candles, many kids today have never
experienced the pure excitement and joy of igniting a fuse and waiting
for the impending explosion.
Introduce your 3-5 year olds to the world of fireworks with
“pop-pops” — those little paper-wrapped tadpole-like things you throw on
the ground. They’re safe and the kids can have fun with them without
injuring themselves or anybody else. You can also get them acquainted
with sparklers. These preparatory “fireworks” offer a chance for
children to learn general principles of safety: not to throw lit objects
at others, touch people with a hot sparkler, handle a dud, etc.
When your kids hit age 6, you can start letting them light innocuous
fireworks like snakes and smoke bombs. These don’t explode and will
teach your kids how to light a fuse safely and to be aware of others as
they use firecrackers.
By age 9 or 10, your kid should be ready to fire off pretty much
anything you can find at a fireworks stand. You should continue to
supervise their pyrotechnics until they’re teens, though.
Hammer a Nail
Hammering a nail is a basic life skill
every person should master, but many parents don’t let their kids
attempt this task out of fear of them smashing their fingers. Yes,
little children are uncoordinated, but the only way they’ll ever
become
coordinated is if they gain hands-on experience in using tools. Start
letting your 3-year-old practice hammering nails with a ball peen
hammer. They’re lighter than the traditional claw variety and thus
easier to handle. As your child’s dexterity and strength improve,
upgrade him to a full-sized claw hammer, lay out a 2×4 and a box of
nails, and let him go to town.
Talk about cheap entertainment.
Stick Your Arm Out a Car Window
Sticking their arm out the window of a moving car and letting their
hand ride the wind is a great way for kids to get acquainted with the
basic principles of aerodynamics — it’s like a personal wind tunnel.
Encourage your child to play with different positions — moving the
angle of her hand, closing and opening her fingers — to observe how
these variations affect lift and drag.
Yes, an arm could be severed if it hit an object alongside the road,
but objects are very, very rarely positioned close enough to cause a
collision. And if they are, your kid’s got eyes, doesn’t she?
Jump Off a Cliff
When you jump from a cliff 20 feet high, you’ll hit the water at 25
miles an hour. That’s enough force to do some serious bodily damage. But
making such jumps, and even those which are higher, is certainly
doable, even for small kids, as long as you take precautions and teach
them proper technique.
Make sure the water is deep enough; for a jump of 20 feet, the water
should be at least 8 feet deep. Then add 2 feet of water depth for every
additional 10 feet of jump height. Ensure the landing spot is free from
underwater obstacles like rocks. And teach your child to jump in a
pencil dive: body straight, arms overhead, back slightly arched to avoid
rotating forward. For little ones who aren’t strong swimmers, put them
in a life jacket before they Geronimo! into the water.
Use a Bow and Arrow
After watching a Robin Hood flick or reading
The Hunger Games,
your kids will probably want to shoot a bow and arrow. Instead of
getting him (or her) the wimpy Nerf variety, let them use the real
thing. A youth archery set can be found for less than $50, will provide
hours of entertainment, and will teach your kids how to be responsible
with potentially dangerous objects. They’ll also pick up skills like
judging distance and how to aim.
Cook a Meal
Cooking might not seem that dangerous, but once your kids start
wanting to help make dinner, you begin noticing how many tasks prompt a
“Whoa, be careful there!” response. Sharp knives, stove fire, and hot
pans present hazards. I remember when I was five, I decided to nuke a
bowl of milk by myself; when I took the bowl out of the microwave, I
spilled its scalding hot contents all over my arm. At first I hid from
my mom, but as a huge blister formed, I had to confess and get it tended
to by a doctor.
Despite such potential mishaps, it’s worth not only letting your
children assist you in the kitchen, but allowing them to try cooking on
their own too. More so than any other activity on this list, it’ll teach
them a valuable skill towards grown-up self-sufficiency.
Climb a Tree
Few activities feel more liberating than climbing a tree. It’s
thrilling to leave the ground and test your physical deftness, as well
as your daring as you decide just how high up you’ll go. The air seems
fresher among the branches. The most classic of classic childhood
activities, hopefully tree climbing will continue on for another
millennia.
Roughhouse
Roughhousing may just look like a primitive-level melee of
potentially injury-causing wrestling and hair pulling, but it actually
has a bunch of high-level benefits. Whether children are mixing it up
with Dad, or with each other,
research has shown that good old fashioned horseplay develops kids’ resilience, intelligence, and even empathy
— it teaches them how to negotiate the dynamics of aggression,
cooperation, and fair play. So suplex your children more often, and
don’t break up the good natured battle royales they put on between
themselves.
Go Sledding
Yes, it’s hard to believe this needs to be mentioned — that sledding
isn’t an intrinsic part of every childhood (at least for those who live
in colder climes). But I’ve met an alarming number of kids who grew up
where there was at least occasional snow, and yet never went sledding.
It’s hard to know if this is because parents are worried about the
danger of the activity, or are just too lazy to leave their toasty,
climate-controlled home to take the kids to a local hill. Either way,
while sledding invariably comes with some bumps and bruises, as well as
environmental discomforts, there’s hardly a more fun and memorable
childhood activity. Especially when mitten-molded snow ramps are
involved.
Drive a Car
Not by themselves, mind you. Or on public streets, of course, which
would be illegal. But in a big parking lot, largely free of obstacles,
positioned on Dad’s lap, who can work the pedals and grab the steering
wheel if needs be. From this position, a kid can experience the thrill
of learning how to steer a 2-ton hunk of metal in relative safety.
Burn Things With a Magnifying Glass
There are many fun and interesting ways to start a fire without matches,
but using a magnifying glass is one of the most versatile. It provides
you with a focused beam of heat that cannot only burn paper and leaves,
but melt plastic. A kid can even use it to burn a symbol or his name
into a piece of wood.
Walk or Ride a Bike to School
According to one study in the U.K., while 80% of third-graders were
allowed to walk to school in 1971, that number had dropped to just 9% in
1990, and is even lower today. Parents started prohibiting their
children from walking or riding their bike to and from school by
themselves out of the fear that they might be kidnapped along the way.
Yet abductions are exceedingly rare, and no more common now than they
were several decades ago. Further, a child has a 40X greater risk of
dying as a passenger in a car than being kidnapped or killed by a
stranger.
If letting your kid walk to school (or even the bus stop) still fills
you with dread, work up to it gradually: 1) Walk together with your
child to school a few times, pointing out any dangers from traffic and
reviewing
how to deal with strangers,
then 2) walk halfway to school with your child, watching her walk the
rest of the way alone, and finally 3) let her walk all the way by
herself, without you watching.
Shoot a Gun
Guns and kids is an understandably sensitive topic, but we’d make the
case that proactively teaching your kids how to safely use firearms is
the best way to teach a healthy respect for them. When they’re 7 or so,
introduce them to a pellet gun and begin teaching proper gun safety
rules like keeping their finger off the trigger until they’re ready to
shoot and treating every weapon as if it were loaded. Set up a a target
(tin cans are fun) in your backyard and let them plink away while you
watch. As they get a little older, they can tote around their BB gun by
themselves. Don’t worry about them shooting their eye out!
When they reach about age 10 or 11, you can introduce them to a .22
caliber rifle or pistol. Again, this should be done under your
supervision and you should reinforce good gun safety principles the
entire time.
Stand on the Roof
What kid hasn’t wanted to get a bird’s eye view of the neighborhood?
Standing on the roof of your home is one of the more risky activities in
this list, naturally, so supervise this vertical venture and take the
necessary precautions: Only allow your child to attempt if your roof
isn’t overly steep and is in good condition, without loose shingles and
other potential hazards. Have your kid walk straight up and down the
roof, standing with one foot on either side of its peak for stability,
as they survey the landscape below.
Squash a Penny on a Railroad Track
Kate did this once in Vermont as a kid. At the exact moment she
placed the penny on the track, a car in an adjacent parking lot happened
to honk its horn; thinking it was the sound of an oncoming train, she
jumped 10 feet in the air. Her family still laughs about it.
You do want to stay aware as you put your penny on a railroad track
to be sure a train isn’t coming. If you’re going to wait for the train
to come by and smoosh your coin, you also want to stand back at least 30
feet, as it could hypothetically come flying off and hit you. You don’t
have to wait around for the train, though. If you decide to come back
in a few hours or the next day to see what became of your penny, mark
the spot with a stick before you leave for easy finding later on.
There’s a myth that a penny can derail a train,
but that’s not true. You don’t want to put anything larger than a penny on the track, though.
Sword Fight With Sticks
Parents are wary of anything involving sharp objects, sticks
included. But letting your kid engage in some improvised swashbuckling
is too fun an opportunity to pass up because of a negligible risk of
injury.
Shoot a Slingshot
In a time not too long ago, the archetypical boy had a handmade
slingshot dangling from the back of his pocket. Today, most boys have
never touched one. Which is a shame because slingshots can provide hours
of fun and they’re a great way to introduce firearm safety to your
young ones (e.g., only point at what you plan on hitting).
Yes, you could just buy your kid a fancy manufactured slingshot on
Amazon, but how about exposing them to even more positive danger by
letting them make their own? (
You can find instructions here.) They’ll learn how to handle a saw safely and get to practice some knife wielding skills to boot.
Explore a Construction Site
While I was growing up, the subdivision I lived in was still under
construction, so there were always plenty of partially-built houses to
explore. After the construction workers left for the day, my boyhood
pals and I would cruise down the street on our bikes to check out their
work and poke around the skeletal structures rising from the muddy lots.
The ones that were the most fun to explore were the two-story houses.
You’d have to climb up the railing-less, unfinished stairs and when you
got to the top, you were able to walk to the edge of the second story’s
framing and throw stuff down on your buds.
It’s a hard way to beat spending an afternoon.
Use a Pocket Knife
In
Home Grown,
author and homesteader Ben Hewitt describes how he gave his sons their
first pocket knives at age four. Hewitt admits that he was worried that
they would constantly slice open their pudgy toddler fingers with these
sharp implements, but much to his surprise, his young boys rarely
injured themselves. “There was something in the seriousness of the blade
and the responsibility granted that transformed our son[s],” he notes.
By giving them the responsibility of using a knife safely, Hewitt’s kids
became responsible.
While you don’t have to give your toddler a pocket knife, consider
letting them handle this trusty, handy tool sooner rather than later.
It’s the only way they’ll learn how to handle sharp things safely and
deftly, and doing so will open up new activities to them — from
whittling to
mumbley peg.
Climb a Rope
Many schools have banned certain physical activities from recess and
P.E. class due to their being too “dangerous.” Football, dodgeball,
tag…even
all balls of any kind and running itself have gotten
the boot in some places. Ropes have also been removed from many school
gyms, due to the perceived risk of a child falling from the top — and
probably also because of the risk of injury to the self-esteem of the
kid who can’t even make it halfway up.
Climbing is one of
the crucial physical skills everyone should develop,
however, so if schools don’t provide the opportunity for its practice,
then parents ought to, perhaps putting up a rope of their own in the
backyard.
Ride Your Bike Off a Ramp
As a kid, taking your bike off a ramp is the closest you’ll get to
flying without being on a plane. Back when I was a boy, my neighborhood
posse and I built a big ol’ ramp out of a pile of dirt. We’d spend hours
flying off that thing. For some reason, my favorite thing was to let go
of my bike in midair and watch it continue to fly while I hit the dirt.
Building and riding off ramps will teach your kids some basic physics
and even some construction skills. They’ll also learn, just as
Napoleon Dynamite did, that if you’re not careful, taking your bike off sweet jumps can be hazardous to your junk.
Make a Fire
There’s a primal connection between man and fire. Nurture that
connection with your kids while they’re young. Let them play with
matches and light candles when they’re pre-school age (with your
supervision). They’ll learn that fire indeed burns, but from a flame so
small it won’t hurt too much if it glances their skin. When they get to
be about 8 or 9, let them build a fire all by themselves (still with
your supervision, of course).
Explore a Tunnel
When my father-in-law was a boy in the early 1960s, the post-WWII
housing boom was still in full swing, and a huge neighborhood was being
built about a mile away from his home. Once the land was cleared,
workers laid out gigantic sewer pipes so high he could walk through them
without bending down, and so long they became pitch black once you
advanced several yards from the openings. Though exploring the tunnels
was a favorite activity of the neighborhood boys, my father-in-law
recalls being a little terrified by these expeditions. Yet they still
became an indelible memory!
Modern explorers should avoid tunnels filled with sewage and unsavory
critters or humans, stay away from storm drains after rain, wear
gloves, and bring along a flashlight — as well as a heaping helping of
courage!
_____________
Magnifying glass photo courtesy of George’s Workshop
Penny photo taken by Eli Duke
