Dangerous or experience?

There’s this new book out, a reaction to the overparenting and cotton-wooling of our children.

Not me, obviously – I’m renowned for underparenting and saying things like “you got yourself up there, you get yourself down” and “Is there blood? Do you need a bandaid? Well don’t bother me!” – but it is rife in society, unfortunately.

Anyhoo, this book is called Fifty Dangerous Things (You should let your children do) and is based on the concept that parents are overprotective and children aren’t developing fully, including learning to do things safely, to judge things and that they will learn these things through experiencing them.

I’m totally in agreeance with these concepts, that children do need to learn through experience.

I am, however, against the concept of teaching or encouraging children to do dangerous and, in this case stupid things, like boiling water in paper cups and putting CDs in microwaves. From my experience, kids do (and mine have) done stupid and dangerous things without being shown how to, complete with instructions.

Hmmm, dangerous? What is dangerous? Well, some would argue climbing a tree is dangerous. I, personally see it as part of learning and I let my kids do it. After all, there are some great developmental skills to be learnt by doing so.

I do “teach” when they do it, along the lines of “That branch won’t hold you, you dill! It’s not strong enough!” I also let them climb down themselves. I hope that when I’m not about, they recall this stuff and do so safely. No garauntees, they’re kids after all.

They’ve licked batteries (no need to read a book to find out about that), stuck fingers together with super glue (again, totally accidental, won’t do it again – they learnt, didn’t need to follow a book). They do this stuff as part of their normal learning.

Except. of course, when they’re hovered over and over-protected.

I do, however, draw the line at stupid, dangerous stuff. See, boiling water in a paper cup is asking for trouble, in my opinion. Boiling water is something, I feel, that is in the domain of parents to teach about in a safe environment, where kid’s aren’t seriously hurt.

Sure, kids climbing trees can lead to hurt kids, but I don’t feel that is putting them into a situation we know can only lead to someone being seriously hurt. I don’t believe putting them into situations that are known to be dangerous most of the time is teaching them anything. Apart from teaching them to be stupid, and it’s ok coz Mum and Dad said I could. In fact, they encourage it. Falling out of trees is just bad luck, bad judgement, or having parents who don’t let you do this stuff so you haven’t learnt how to do it safely.

Of course, in this litigous and over-protective society we know live in, our kids have fewer opportunities to learn “dangerous” stuff. Monkey bars in pre-schools are so low that most kids can touch the ground, playgrounds aren’t as high, so there is less risk of getting hurt … basically, our whole infrastructure is going against children learning through experience.

My main problem, I think, is that some people will take this book too literally, and we’ll see an increase in injuries and death due to stupidity, law suits and a rush to bubble-wrap the already not-encouraging-development playgrounds.

Argh!

Or worse, my already experimental kids (one of whom attempted to pole vault over a bed using a cardboard roll (not in the book!) and smashing his knee as the roll bent) will get hold of it and I’ll be forced to parent more than I currently am. And stock up on bandaids.

Seriously, though, there’s a fine line between learning through experience, and doing dangerous things. Anything almost gauranteed to maim or kill, I consider stupid and dangerous.

If there’s a low risk of hurt (or death) which is far outweighed by learning and developing useful skills, then, in my opinoin, that’s learning through experience.

(You can also see my comment in the article on news.com.au Kids to lick a battery and make a bomb)