Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do

Every now and then some of the staff and I chat about child rearing (aka parental survival). Several of the moms talk about creating a bubble around their kids. I always thought in terms of a fence, specifically a two rail post fence. You know, porous enough to let things like rabbits, squirrels, wolves in, but not so porous that big things like cows and kids could actually get out.

My thinking about having a porous fence instead of an impermeable bubble was that interesting stuff -objects, ideas, interactions- could still get to and influence my children, but at least I'd know where they where.

So I was was really intrested and pleased when this video came my way a little while ago. Now before getting to the video let's talk about its source.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. The videos (all free) are of scientist, technologists, economists, musicians and artists presenting at the annual TED conference which brings together interesting and imaginative people from all all over the globes. So visit the site, but be aware it is a real productivity killer. Many of the topics overlap and mesh with the materials available from iTunes U that I mentioned a few posts ago.

Anyway, about the video, Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do. Right away I started ticking off all the things the speaker listed and was pleased that I'd done all but one by age 10. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act didn't exist until I turned 50, so I'm not to blame for not getting it sooner. I did break that one the day after it was passed, just like everyone else who owned a personal computer.

The Tinkering School looks very interesting. It is nice to see de-constructing technology as play has evolved into a social event from the rather solitary backyard exploration of yore.