Let your kids do dangerous things

"When we round every corner and eliminate every sharp object...then the first time that kids come in contact with anything sharp,or not made out of round plastic,they'll hurt themselves with it."Gever Tulley

Lick a 9-volt battery.

This is one of the things you can allow your children to do and not worry about whether or not they will be injured. (They won't.)

In fact, there are plenty of things our kids can do and should do in order to stay safe.  In the video below, Gever Tulley asserts, "the most effective way of keeping children safe is to give them a little taste of danger."

One way to cure ourselves of the "helicopter parenting" syndrome is to  make deliberate decisions which expose our kids to dangerous things such as fire and pocket knives. After all, Tulley asserts, the real danger is not knowing what to do with things that are dangerous.

If you're squeamish, you may not appreciate his radical suggestion, but I think they're brilliant.

1. Walk to school
2. Play in trees
3. Burn things with a magnifying glass
4. Make a bomb in a bag
5. Superglue your fingers together

In his humorous and uplifting style, Gever Tulley debunks classic myths of childhood safety. With rampant fear mongering, is it any wonder that children are actually over-protected? Instead, Tulley believes the most effective way to keep children safe is to give them a little taste of danger.

If our perceptions of risk are based on hearsay, it makes sense to push the boundaries.

Personally, I'm going to be looking for the superglue!