Episode 56: Children & Risk-Taking

One of our biggest challenges as parents is to help our children explore their boundaries so that they can learn to calculate and manage risk for themselves.

“The more risks you allow your children to make, the better they learn to look after themselves.”

- Roald Dahl

Over the past 10-20 years, we've seen an epidemic, especially in the United States, of parents trying too hard to keep their children safe and protected by telling them what to do, what to trust, and what to fear, instead of helping them to cultivate their own abilities to judge and manage risk and to develop their own trust in themselves.

In this episode, we challenge you to allow your young children the freedom to take a few more supervised risks and to give them your support as they challenge their own abilities.  Through creating more opportunities for children to learn and grow, we are helping them to cultivate valuable life-skills that are necessary for a successful future. 

Resources From This Episode:

Risky Play: Why Children Love It and Need It by Peter Gray 4/7/2014, Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201404/risky-play-why-children-love-it-and-need-it

Reasonable Risk Taking: Why Your Children Need to Take Them, by Timber Nook 7/28/15: http://www.balancedandbarefoot.com/blog/how-reasonable-risk-taking-benefits-kids

Tim Gill, Rethinking Childhood: https://rethinkingchildhood.com/ 

The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden

The Daring Book for Girls by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskoqitz