My kids love this TED Talk: 5 dangerous things you should let your little kids do | Talk Video | TED
I received an email from my son who’s at BYU, married with a new baby. He’s just getting his feet wet with regards to parenting — experiencing the beginnings of what it’s like to have a child. We will see how he feels about this list as his son gets older — say age 3.
So when my son read the list, he proudly proclaimed, “Pretty sure we did all of these growing up.” And it wasn’t all through scouting, cuz my husband and I just weren’t into the Boy Scouts. (Though the scouts have some cool campouts, we just didn’t keep to the law — we color outside the lines in our family, and thus the badges present some problems.)
5 dangerous things you should let your little kids do:
1. Play with fire
2. Own a pocketknife
3. Throw a spear/axe/knives
4. Deconstruct appliances
5. Drive a car when the child is little
Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Add in there: sling shots, cross-bows, pellet guns, bb guns, paint-ball guns, boomerangs, potato guns, fireworks, black gun powder, swords …. and I am sure they are keeping a few secrets from dear old mom.
Since my husband grew up in the country, with little or no parental supervision, he was well acquainted with all five of these dangerous things. And he made sure our sons got the same exciting toys. By the time I had my fifth child, I was 41, and I wasn’t surprised when my husband bought our 4 year old a long-handled lighter. He immediately opened it and used it to light his birthday cake candles, while I made sure he didn’t catch his hair on fire.
When they worked on their pine wood derby cars, my husband got a small propane bottle with a nozzle on it and fire coming out of it so they could melt metal on the car. (see, outside the box thinking) The creative mind mixed with fire is something to behold. As I recall, it made me so nervous I left the house. When I returned, we had one burn wound, the size of a quarter.
To tell you the truth, I understand why the Gods decided it wasn’t a good thing for man to be alone — they put Adam back to sleep and when he woke-up the second time, there was Eve. Yea. The Gods realized that it is not good for man to be alone.
But that doesn’t make it any easier for me.
My husband is a combustion engineer. So, fire is part of the deal. I walked out into the garage and found him testing what looked like a dangerous pipe-of-a-dragon with fire coming out of the end. And then he wanted me to look in the end of it and see the fire swirling — He’s working on a burner for a gasification unit at UC Riverside. He’s impressive when it comes to design, and dangerous things. It’s not my cup of tea. And we have four sons who get to take part.
He helped my older sons build a potato gun, which they used on a piece of old bullet-proof plastic from some aircraft. Luckily they couldn’t get it to fire when my son took it out with some friends, and he hid behind the shield. There is divine intervention, for us moms.
Here’s what you can do with a small vacuum and fire, my husband is testing a burner.
Yea, I know, I held my iphone the wrong way for these videos.
Fuel gas, from another project:
