Ed Tech Ideas

Tech Integration for Busy Teachers

5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do

Leave a comment Posted by @k_ferrell on March 31, 2010

Fantastic advice from Gever Tulley, the founder of the Tinkering School. Gever notes that our children are growing up in a safety bubble imposed upon them by over-cautious parents, and are not being allowed to learn by doing as often as they should.

Here is his list of 5 dangerous things you should let you kids do:

Play with fire
Own a pocketknife
Lay down a few simple ground rules like cut away from your body, always keep the knife sharp, never force it, etc.
Throw a spear
Our brains are naturally wired for throwing things and if you don’t use it, you lose it. Throwing spears helps them develop their visualization skills and their predictive ability.
Deconstruct appliances
Take things apart with your kid, even if you don’t know what the parts do, it’s very good practice for children as they will learn parts. This is also great to do with computers.
Drive a car