me rite gud

Speaking of letting kids do dangerous things… It got me thinking about another interesting article I remembered reading over the summer. Using the powers of the Internets (which has replaced my ability to remember anything) I was able to dig it up again.  So here it is,  an article by David Derbyshire in the Daily Mail:  “How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Four Generations.“

Comparing my kids childhood to my own, it seems crazy how much I was allowed to roam around my old neighborhood. I remember summer days where I wouldn’t see my parents during daylight hours. We had crazy good fun playing in the woods (and crap pond), miles from home. Or atleast it seems like miles. Definitely well out of eye or earshot of my mother. I can’t imagine letting the kids run wild in Los Angeles. Okay, so its not the same as rural upstate New York. But still.

I’ve also been getting super paranoid about losing the kids in public. I find myself asking the kids, “if you got lost here what would you do?” Eden’s answers are pretty solid and I think she would do a fantastic job on her own. Eamon scares me. Not only do I have no idea what he would do if he got lost, he doesn’t seem too worried about not knowing where we are or even where he is. I’ve even contemplated giving them cellphones. Yikes.

Eden is learning her multiplication tables which involves daily speed quizes where they have to get 25 problems correct in one minute before they can move on to the next set. We’ve been practicing alot at home and I finally got tired of making up sample quizes by hand. So here is my quick and dirty quiz maker.

While I was at it, I did one for Eamon who is working on addition.

Found this one on boing boing. While the title of his talk is semi sensationalist, Gever Tulley actually has some good ideas. Thinking about my childhood, I had tons of time to tinker. All of the items on his list were things I got a chance to experience as a kid. Sure I almost burned down the house and rendered our only telephone unusable for a couple days. But I learned to safely handle fire and keep very good track of the screws when taking things apart. In retrospect, the freedom to tinker was one of the best things my parents could have done for me. While I think we let our kids explore things on their own, its really time I start setting them up to do some of the things I did as a kid. Unfortunately I don’t think his book is available yet but I am looking forward to it. While the Dangerous Book for Boys (and Girls) is interesting, its also very tame. Hurrah for having fun playing with fire, knives, cars and big appliances.