Rewards of Risk

Totally worth it

We were hanging around a certain store that sells outrageously priced but super cool outdoor gear a few weeks ago when Annabelle comes skipping over waving a book at me.  “We need this book!” she squealed.

She handed it over and I instantly recognized her attraction to it.  1) It has cartoon art of bears, bikes, and trees on the cover and 2) the title is Let Them Be Eaten By Bears: A Fearless Guide to Taking Our Kids into the Great Outdoors by Peter Brown Hoffmeister.  I’m pretty sure that she thought this was an illustrated journal of kids getting eaten by bears while riding bikes in the woods…3 of her favorites. “Please, please let’s get this,” she said (cue the whimpering and eye batting). “We can read it together.”

“I don’t think this is what you think it is, but we’ll see.”  (What a sucker am I.)  So I ordered a used copy from half.com because half.com rules when it comes to buying used books…especially if you’re not in a big hurry.

It came in and has turned out to be a really good read.  I started reading it to AB but, as expected, it’s not a book about bear attacks, with the exception of one incident, and she quickly lost interest.  Here is an excerpt that perfectly captures the approach I think I take with my kids and certainly the one my parents applied to raising us.

“We have to accept certain risks.  Kids will crash their bikes.  Kids will get lost for a few minutes and find their way back.  Kids will improvise solutions that don’t work.  Kids will get sunburned and/or cold.

When our older daughter, Rain, was ten years old, she taught herself how to do a front flip on the trampoline in our backyard.  She stuck thirty or forty flips that day, so happy to have learned the trick.  But the next day, she over rotated and landed on the metal bar with her face, snapping off a chunk of her front tooth.  Her mouth was bleeding and we had to call the dentist’s emergency number.  Jennie and I weren’t very calm.  It was hard for me to see her with a bloody mouth and snuggled front teeth.  But Rain was proud of herself still.  Smashing her face didn’t diminish the fact that she’d taught herself how to do a front flip.  So Jennie and I realized that her learning a new skill, one that gave her confidence, was more significant than a mouth injury….

Injuries are unpredictable.  In the spring of 2011, Rain was playing soccer three times a week and climbing (rocks) three times a week.  If she were going to get injured, it seems that she would get injured doing one of these two activities.  But she didn’t.  Instead, she reached for a bottle of vanilla on the high shelf one Saturday morning, slipped, fell, hit the corner of the stove, and broke her ribs.”

I’m not promoting intentionally putting kids in dangerous situations, but I am all about parking the helicopter and letting them try adventurous things and grow from the resulting successes/failures.  Be safe but daring.

That’s not reckless, irresponsible, or lazy.  It takes preparation, faith, and courage to let them live with a spirit of adventure, and I’d rather them be afraid of missing the experience vs. afraid to jump off the cliff into the gravel pit pond.