Do you let your kids climb trees?
Chase each other? Wade in creeks?
Here’s an article from the BBC regarding modern kids who are no longer able to play adventurously, due to scaredy-cat moms and dads.
Granted, if you live in a large city, there aren’t many opportunities to build tree forts or catch frogs down at the pond. But you could still let your kiddo tear around a playground like a tornado, right?
LOL. I read the article and had no idea how one might play conkers. So I went to wikipedia. Interesting. I know now why I had no idea.
I’ve been wondering where the kids are in my own neighborhood this summer. Maybe this explains the partial too-quietness.
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Aren’t conkers like a type of throwing game with really heavy nut things?
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I just looked up conkers. Looks like a miniature version of tetherball. Not quite sure why anyone would ban it, as it looks about as dangerous as marbles.
And not only do I try to get the kids into as dangerous a place as I can (until my wife finds out, that is), I’ve brought grasshoppers, toads, fireflies and turtles into the house. Even put a toad in the baby’s crib for a look.
Thanks for the reminder to do more of that.
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I was at a playground last summer when I saw a pair of svelte, forty-ish parents sternly reprimanding their five-year-old daughter for running. At a playground.
I told myself maybe she had hemophilia or something.
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I’m itching to get out of the suburbs; there is no place for our kids to go exploring around here. The park is great for letting them run off some of that energy, but oh, how I loved just poking around in the woods when I was a kid. I wish my kids could do the same — and hope to make it happen one day.
Well, my kids love climbing the trees in our yard, especially the boys. And I’ve recently started letting my 8 & 9 YO ride their bikes to the end of our culdesac by themselves. (We live near the beginning and can’t see the end of it from our house.) I don’t think I’d let my kids play conkers though.
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I don’t know… wrapping a child in cotton wool doesn’t sound safe, either. LOL
We live in the country and even though I’m a paranoid wreck sometimes thinking of all the creepy crawlies out there, I still send them outside to play a lot. My kids know what poisonous snakes and spiders look like (there are 4 varieties of poisonous snakes in our area) and they know what to do if they see one. Of course, there have never been any snakes on our property that we’ve seen, but still, they know what to do if they see one. I encourage tree climbing even though I fell out of one once as a child. We’re teaching them to swim and how to look out for danger.
I don’t think sheltering them is the answer… education is. I think the key is not to limit their activities, but teach them about their surroundings and how to be safe and how to treat each other. (Although the term “conkers” sounds like an accurate description of their “play” sometimes.)
That would be where you thump one another on the head with a hard object…
We live in the country so my kids spend much of the time up a tree or on a tire swing, or jumping on a trampoline oh the horror… Just last week our 6 year old caught his first black snake and took it to the garden to kill anything that might be eating our veggies all by himself! I guess we have just thrown caution to the wind!
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Heck yes I do. I let them climb trees, and catch frogs, and ride go-carts, and play on merry-go-rounds, and ride their bikes, sometimes *gasp* without helmets. Actually all of the time without helmets but I don’t want to start a controversy.
Interesting article.
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Mikey used to play conkers as a child. 🙂
I read a similar article about this.
http://artofmanliness.com/2008/06/03/quit-coddling-your-kids/
Very interesting. I wish we had more places for our kids to explore.
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My boys climb trees so high that the trees get scared lol No seriously though, I agree. Kids NEED to be kids and run havoc
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I let my kids climb trees – even in the park. You wouldn’t believe the looks I get sometimes. There is a certain measure of danger that goes along with it, but I remember it as being the closest thing to flying.
Well, that and riding my bike without holding on to the handlebars…
Hee hee – we used to play conkers in the Autumn. A conker is the seed from the horse chestnut tree. There was always debate over whether to bake them or not before playing. They got harder but became more brittle.
I let my kids climb trees, jump off walls and shipping containers, and pretty much anything their little hearts desire. They have a certain amount of natural timidity, so I know that anything they’re willing to do will be fine. Sometimes I’m a bit nervous, but I am myself very timid physically, and I’m determined not to pass that on to them–it’s so limiting.
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