Do you know how hot a kettle is before you touch it?
How sharp a knife is before you cut yourself with it?
Or, how it feels to be lost….until you are lost?
When I was a kid things were simpler. When my parents were kids they were simpler still. I ran through the woods, I did shit and stuff and we walked the streets looking for fun.
What has changed?
Surprisingly little, other than our fear, our paranoia and our absolute dissociation with reality.
What I mean is…the problem is in your head, the problem is not other people.
Kids learn by taking risks, kids learn by getting things wrong, kids learn by fucking things up. That is how I learnt, that is how you learnt, so why the hell are we preventing our kids from learning in exactly the same way?
Let them run wild, let them do things that make you worry, let them fall out of trees, into rivers. Let legs and arms be broken, let tears be shed, let fear be feared and let us let them free.
Free from us.
Free from our fears.
Free to grow.
I’m with you on this one.
When I was a kid we were lucky for a few reasons
1. I lived in the US for a bit and everyone looked after each other
2. When we moved to the UK our first house had a ‘green’ infront of it which was surrounded by the houses and no cars near by we also had a park behind our house and as a gang of kids we were safe we could be seen and we always told someones mum where we were off to.
As we got older we moved to the house we are in at the moment and again lucky enough to have a smaller ‘green’ for us to ‘hang’ around with rather then play on as we were older but with this older age we took more care of ourselves and gave less worry to the parents.
At the end of the night we would drop each other off all the girls first then the boys would go home.
I feel sorry for the kids now they play in each others gardens and the cars are more then when I was young plus the green now has a no ball games sign.
Something isn’t the same and has changed and it makes me feel sorry that they don’t run around like we used to.
Yep……although my kids still go to the park on their own….we try to make them feel that they are safe and ok. Partly we’re lucky that we live in a “nice” area and of course also that the boy is training for his black belt in Taekwondo and the girl isn’t far behind!
Nice post, couldn’t agree with you more.
Thanks Beth
I look at trees now, that I climbed when I was 10, and I wouldn’t go near them now!
A little bit of reckless does you good.
Totally……as you say, it is good for the soul for kids to be a little bit reckless and helps them to manage risk.
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