Back in the 70s my son was learning to shoot a bb gun when he was two, under supervision. We had horses, donkeys, goats, chickens. So did the neighbors. And he was petrified of SOB, a blue-eyed gander who beat him with his wings once. We stacked heavy alfalfa bales high up in the barn and black widows in their nests watched in the corners. There was a tame redtail hawk in residence. We caught mice (or bought them) to feed her. He got really dirty; he played in mud so thick I had to hose him off with cold water, whether it was cold or hot outside, and he mucked out corrals sometimes. There were lots of trees whose limbs could fall, chain link fences with a twist in the wire where a kid climbing could hang up (he did) and lots of dogs bigger than he, who slobbered over him - the bloodhounds). He had a playhouse he reached high up in a pepper tree by way of a rope ladder. The sand was soft and deep underneath and he could've fallen and gotten hurt, but he didn't.
He got his first Indian motorcycle at 2-1/2 and couldn't ride it. At 3 he had one of the first Honda 3-wheelers - a really small one and was allowed to go down to the vacant lot and go over the bumps (under supervision) and eventually graduated to small dirt bikes and big Honda 3-wheelers. He had a helmet. He rode bicycles into shreds, popping wheelies, donuts and jumping hills with his buds. No bicycle helmets. One time he rode his dirt bike right over a bump and in slow motion, went airborne and into the American River and out of sight. We could see the white helmet rising, fished him out, and the motorcycle. He got wrapped in a towel, dried by a fire, and thought he was going to catch hell, but not that time. He collected plenty of scrapes, bruises and stitches in his childhood, and at 40+ he is still riding a dirt bike. He broke his femur. He was wearing every protection a pro rider wears. He still broke his femur. Did he stop. No.
By 6 or 7 we were plinking targets out in the CA desert, and at 14 he and I took the NRA hunter training course at Jack First's Gun Shop in Lancaster. At 16 he got his first rifle. There was never a danger of his mishandling a firearm. All of the kids in the neighborhood knew where the family firearms were and no one felt uncomfortable in letting any child visit another.
He just bought his two children four-wheelers and protective gear. I would love to start teaching them firearm safety and take them shooting.
Oh yeah. He learned to swim jumping off a rock under the bridge on Dutch Creek in Coloma, CA with the American River just below us. He was 2 or 3. By the time we moved to the River in 1976, he was a good swimmer. None of us worried too much about broken glass or water wings or flotation, goggles or nose clips. You jumped in from that big rock into waiting arms and you learned to swim, just like how my father learned. His brother, my Uncle Nunzi, tossed him off the leaning arm of an overhanging tree at Martling's Pond on Staten Island. No one was there to catch him. You swam or you didn't go home. That's the way it was with 9 brothers and sisters in the early 1900s.
He was sitting between his father's legs learning to drive the truck out in the desert before junior high. No seatbelts. He and his friends would pile into the back of the open pickup and we'd go bouncing into the desert. The only requirement insisted upon was that they all sit in the bed and not on the wheelwells. This was prior to seatbelt laws. IF we had them, they were just lap belts and if you wanted to, you wore them. And in the gunrack, there was always a rifle.
When we lived in Oregon, he was splitting wood for the woodstove in the rain...with an AX! He was a freshman in high school. That was where he nearly lost two toes when the lawnmower slid on the damp bank and we were afraid to remove his shoe. I didn't want to reach in and feel his severed toes. It was bad, but not that bad.
He learned to SCUBA in Key Largo at 16 and got a job as a tank jockey. Later he got his Divemaster and Rescue Diver ratings. We let him do a deep dive with his instructor who took him to 170 feet; he was already assisting other divers and he took part in a NOAA research project on blood nitrogen levels which meant living in an underwater pod for several days. That was before his first car. He rode a moped all over the Keys. He could have died of the bends; been ravaged by eels or baracudas, or hit by a vehicle on US1 but he was ok.
In his late teens, coming home from an early breakfast in town with friends and stone sober, he reached down to change the station on the radio in his car, hit the sandy shoulder and rolled it three times. He was ejected out the window, ended up in the far lane in the middle, vertically, and a truck passed right over him. He suffered a fractured leg and head trauma. We were away for the weekend and were furious at the way he left the house. That afternoon I started calling hospitals and I found him. The deputy on the scene said if he had been wearing a seatbelt, he would not have lived - he would have been cut in two.
My point is this.
He was a rowdy student, a class clown (so is his son). He had a lot of energy and a lot of friends to channel it with. They were all good kids at a time when some of the mothers (including me) were home. So the house was full of kids until dinner time, most days and I knew all of his friends. I can still see them breakdancing out by the garage on cardboard laid on the concrete - trying to spin on their heads.
He took a lot of chances, and though I knew where he was and what he was doing half the time (or maybe less), he was quite independent, always. He grew up safe and responsible; never got bitten by a rattlesnake, never fell down a mine shaft, or drowned.
Do I think personally that parents coddle their children? Yes. Do I think they are too indulgent?
Yes, even more than I. Do I think the government has the right to medicate them in school and turn them into dullards. Absolutely not! Do I think they need to be taken care of in a car in a car seat until they are teen? No. Hell, no!
I think kids should be allowed to get bloody, scabby knees, scraped elbows, cut lips, broken bones, insect stings from caterpillars and bees, to let them push their own envelopes within reason but not over protected. The boys should fight for their rights with their fists if necessary as a last resort, and not be treated like fragile china and learn to protect their sisters and friends. Bullies should be punished, and their parents need to know. One good shot in the nose with accompanying bruising and bleeding is a good lesson for a bully, be it a girl or boy. How is it that a kid can be bullied literally to death today on a Facebook page? HOW WEIRD IS THAT? There is life without social networking. And if they say they will JUST DIE without an iPhone, or a text/phone, so what? They won't.
My bully was a cross-eyed, crooked toothed, red-headed boy named David He used to call me names and tease me because I was chubby. He would follow me and taunt me going and coming from school (we walked home for lunch, too). His crossed eyes made my skin crawl. He terrified me. I was so quiet and shy (can you believe!), and my mother would not protect me. "Fight your own battles or else he won't stop," she said as she handed me the umbrella one day. This was after he threw a shingle at me and it scraped my leg. Well, the day finally came for revenge and I walloped him good with my umbrella. We were never friends but he stayed a respectful distance from me and never teased me again and I didn't need my umbrella.
We are churning out kids from high schools who can't read, know nothing, and who don't have any common sense. They don't know what it takes to punch a bully in the nose, to stand up for their rights, to learn from you that the government must be limited and not overtake the lives of the people. It is up to them to touch that hot stove, to punch that bully's lights out, to follow that seam in the rock, to climb that mountain, to ride that horse. When it hurts, they'll stop. Wherever the calling is, let them experience it. I hear "good job" when the "job" isn't done well. Tough. When a child is not doing what is expected, you don't reward them. They won't be rewarded by their bosses or spouses in the future for doing poorly and underachieving. Failure isn't fun. It's a lonely hole. You must crawl out, get your head straight and plod on. They need their butts kicked once in a while in order to have a reference point so they won't want to fail. Failure has consequences. Always. The adult world is a dog-eat-dog community. Your bones will be picked clean if you fail and don't get up, learn what you did wrong and start again.
I don't know if I've made my point. I hope that many of you will agree with what I've written. Don't let your kids grow up to be wusses. Make them bright, sharp and savvy.
Please.
Make them strong and make them tough. Give them principles, honesty and courage. When life seems full of gray areas, teach them to see the black and the white. Because the gray isn't right. Give them a sense of history - of where they come from as Americans and the responsibility that comes from our founding documents. Teach them self-reliance, confidence, boldness without arrogance and self-respect; to question authority and DON'T ever allow them to be submissive to a government who would take them from you from cradle to grave if you let them.
You owe it to them as parents and families. And don't let the nanny state control how you raise your children by modifying their behavior, by teaching them watered down curricula at school, by teaching them to be passive, to monitor their every move, to drug them for being kids. The government wants to control your children so they will be compliant adults who will not rebel when rebellion is crucial to their very existence. Teach them what freedom and liberty costs and what it means.
We will not exist as a culture, as free people, without your teaching your children to stand up strong against the madmen of the world
Maybe that's the whole point of this.
http://loydf.wordpress.com/2007/04/12/overprotected-children-developmental-issues/
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