kids and danger

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I recently saw a web article by Gever Tulley on 6 dangerous things your child should do. Although the speaker seemed to repeat himself a lot, and had to look at his notes constantly for such a brief topic, the meat of the article was great. Gever is the co-founder of the Tinkering School, a camp where kids get to play with their very own power tools. He wants to help kids learn how to build, solve problems, use new materials and hack old ones for new purposes. He talks about how today’s society has tried to create such a safe environment that kids are not allowed to explore and learn basic skills and logic patterns. There are more stringent safety rules for kids all the time, from warning labels on marshmallows stating that the mallows need to be cut into bite sized pieces and children should be sitting and supervised while eating, to anything sharper than a golf ball being to dangerous for kids under the age of ten. Where does it stop? Kids need to experience things while they are young and still have the curiosity and a desire to explore the world around them, (and can heal fast). He focused on a few things that kids don’t get to do, but should.

1. Play with fire. Teaches how to control your environment. A basic element that has been used for generations.

2. Get a pocketknife. A great “empowerment” tool. (Not to be confused with empowerment weapon)

3. Throw a spear. Our brains are wired for throwing things, if you don’t believe me hand something to your baby/child. If not used, those “wires” will atrophy, creating a weakened system. Throwing stimulates the frontal and parietal parts of the brain.

4.Take apart appliances. What a great way to find out how things work.

5.Break the digital millennium copyright act. They need to learn that there are laws beyond safety regulations that attempt to limit how we can interact with our own property. Download a song off ITunes, burn it to a disk, then download it to your MP3 player and you’ve broken this law. Some laws get broken by accident, and they need to be interpreted. Which leads to #6.

6. Drive a car. Find a safe, empty lot and let them drive, this shows your confidence in them and who doesn’t want to drive a car at a young age.

Okay so he went into more detail and reasons why we should allow these activities, and even encourage them. I just thought it was an interesting concept.