Over protecting our children
I just finished reading a blog post from @teachernz. It has an embedded video from the TED series:
It’s well worth watching. @teachernz challenged his readers to list how many of the things mentioned we’d done as children. My response:
Let’s see. As a child I:
1. played with fire – my parents taught me how to make the BEST campfires
2. owned my own ‘bowie’ knife – wasn’t called that but you know what it looks like
3. threw everything – we made spears and bows and arrows (and actually i was also taught how to fire a gun!)
4. i don’t remember pulling things to pieces … but have encouraged others to do so (especially computers)
5a. break the dmca – i have no idea if that was law back when i was younger but as a teenager i copied records onto tapes …
5b. drove a car – my dad had some kind of small car – it had part of the roof that slid back and i got to stand up and hang outside while he drove the car around the field then i got to drive it – don’t remember how old but pre-10perhaps i should share my shooting story?
So here’s my shooting story.
Dad had guns in the house. He was a member of the Kings 100 (top 100 marksmen in the armed forces) and had some fancy guns. (Rifle/pistol/revolver.) So he taught us 3 older children how to handle guns safely and how to shoot. Of course an adults version of safety and a child’s version can be quite different.
We three set up a shooting alley down the hallway. My bedroom door was at the top end facing the entrance to the bathroom. At the end of the hallway was the door to my brother’s bedroom and to the left the hallway continued for about a metre to my sisters bedroom door. We set the target up against my brothers door – a box with newpapers in it to absorb the pellets we would be firing (we didn’t call it a BB gun but I guess that’s what it was). One person was the shooter – the other two had to get from either my bedroom or the bathroom down the hall, round the corner and into my sisters bedroom with out getting hit by any of the bullets. No one came away unscathed.
Many years later (40 or so) going back to visit the old house the current occupants asked if we had any idea what all the little holes were in a particular door!
We also never attempted to fire like that with the ‘real guns’, we never fired at anyone’s face, and none of us shoot today.
this is a thought provoking video, jo, and i’m actually going to go leave a comment on @teachernz’s site.
i was a sickly child, and spent a lot of time indoors, but i too:
1) was taught to build and maintain a fire.
2) owned a pocketknife, and even whittled!
3) er, ok, maybe not so much on the “throwing”. little american girls did not throw in the 60’s/early 70’s. (and can i just say how funny it was to hear an american guy say la-BOR-a tory!)
4) not so much on the taking things apart either – again, not something encouraged for girls, and i had no brothers
5) yes, broke dmca all the time! radio to cassette, 45 to cassette, trading said cassettes, etc!
5.5) started driving early, though not nearly as early as you! my girlfriend had an older boyfriend, and we would take the school bus as far as his work, then drive his car to school. she was always afraid of getting caught, so i did the actual driving. little country town, no big deal; we drove up one whole road, as it was a straight shot from the gas station to the school (does that sound small town or what?). at 14 my father put me behind the wheel, said, “this is the clutch, this is the brake, this is the gas. let me know if you have any problems.” been driving ever since, though i didn’t get my formal license until i was 17.
but the best gift of my childhood was unsupervised free time. i’ll talk more about that on @teachernz.
cheers,
kelly