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I was at a tailgate before a baseball game last night and we were drinking beer out of red Solo cups and the first thing I thought of was that Mefi thread.
I'll bet when that cup catches on fire and drips molten burning plastic, it'll be real pretty. I have a scar from doing that, because when we were kids, we climbed, jumped, ran(not with scissors), experimented, swam, and took ridiculous risks. But because we had been adventuring and playing all our lives, we figured out how to assess risk and get ourselves out of most situations. I did have a couple brushes with water, and am lucky to have survived them.
It terrified me to let my son play outside on his own. If anything happened, how could I live with myself. And I'd be seen as a negligent parent. But how could he learn to be independent and competent if I didn't let him practice. I stopped him when he and hid buddy were making flaming things on top of a skateboard, because they were likely to burn down the garage. And the homemade ski jump was a liability nightmare, though I wish I had pictures.
My son and the same buddy made their own ski videos, so I got to see what fearless risks they took on old closed trails or the back side of the mountain. But I also got to see how beautifully and skillfully they ski. and some hilarious crashes in which no one was injured.
Risk can be managed but not avoided. Wear the helmet - skiing, cycling, skateboarding. No compromises on that, because the brain isn't always repairable. Learn safety rules for boating. Learn to swim. Small risks and minor disasters teach you how to deal with real trouble.
The kids that stay inside after school avoiding risk are growing up fat, at risk of diabetes and heart disease. They learn to stay in an air-conditioned world experiencing life through teevee. They have to have a shield from a sparkler. Don't their parents have the wit to teach them anything? They're probably the asses who'll leave the cups, sparkler wires, and other crap behind after the fireworks for some other kid to stop on and get burned or punctured.
First time my little pyro got hold of one he tried to light the pop rock he was holding. There's not enough there there to make it happen. I've touched the sparkly end, it's not that bad.
Can you twirl it when you hold it like that? That was the only reason to have sparklers was to make crazy shapes while someone took a picture.
When I was little, the best fun was at the end of the night when we'd gather up all the used up fireworks and toss them in the trashcan and set the stuff on fire. Fun times.
Since there's no burn ban this year, we're going out to a buddy's farm to do essentially the same thing.
And the homemade ski jump was a liability nightmare, though I wish I had pictures.
Oh jeez, we had something like this: a homemade (hinged, foldable, and perhaps most frighteningly, COLLAPSIBLE) skateboard/bike ramp. On reflection, it's hard to believe our skittish father, who could see a disaster a mile off, let my brothers build this and erect it in the driveway. Kids from black around would come to skateboard off it into our front lawn (or, more desirably, into the street, depending on which way we aimed the ramp and, relatedly, whether Dad was home to object or not) and to ghost their bikes off it.
Of course, we also had a homemade, hand-sharpened guillotine and a blowgun that shot out skin-piercing wire-and-bead projectiles. It's amazing that they let us make these things, and even more amazing that we all survived.
Then there are the less obvious but equally real hazards like my third-hard Suzy Homemaker oven, with its frayed cord and melty plastic sides and white-hot interior plates. That thing gave off a delicious ozone-y whiff of thunderstorms and hot hair whenever I plugged it in. I looooooovvvvvvved it, not least because I was allowed to use it unsupervised.
I really encourage my kids to experiment physically, but sometimes it doesn't quite work out the way I plan. Recently, our printer died and I thought my son might like to pull it apart and see what was inside (because I just loved to do that stuff as a kid, although I wasn't so good at putting things back together). He did, in fact, have a great time pulling it apart. With a claw hammer. There are bits of printer scattered to every corner of our shed.
Yep, helmets are mandatory when riding anything. Yes, I try to teach kids about what is hazardous to them. But they still love to throw sparklers up in the air and watch them twirl back down (they know well enough to throw them away, not straight up) and they love to throw things in the fire when we have one outside, just to see what will happen.
The sparkly end of a sparkler is about as safe as anything gets - I know for sure you can't set anything on fire with one (god knows my kids have tried often enough) and even grabbing the burning end, while not something you'd do twice, isn't likely to do any lasting harm. I could rant about this all day, but kids need more risk in their lives, not less because small risks is how you get to learn how to deal with big risks.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
