We live in a world that’s subjected to ever more stringent child safety regulations. No more dodgeball; suffocation warnings on every piece of plastic; warnings on coffee cups to tell us that the contents may be hot.
“We seem to think that any item sharper than a golf ball is too sharp for children under the age of 10,” says Gever Tulley,
So, Tulley, founder of something called the Tinkering School, a place where kids build things with power tools, has written a new book called, 50 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do. (Number 46 is “Super Glue Your Fingers Together – Experience life without a thumb!)
When we round every corner and eliminate every sharp object, every pokey bit in the world, 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. So, as the boundaries of what we determine as the safety zone grow ever smaller, we cut off our children from valuable opportunities to learn how to interact with the world around them.
Tulley, a computer scientist by trade, wrote a blog post giving us the top five or six hazards, and why kids should be encouraged to dive in. They are:
1. Play with fire
2. Own a pocket knife
3. Throw a spear
4. Deconstruct appliances
5. Break the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
6. Drive a car
Read the full article by Tulley here, or watch his TED Talk video below…