Topic #28, Climb a Tree, suggests that the proper way to get out of a tree is to climb down – but there’s a lot to be said for this approach:

“That’s not safe! How do they know there are no sticks or rakes in the pile?”, someone will inevitably ask.
The correct answer to this problem is to have the kids make the pile of leaves themselves, and the correct instruction to give them is “don’t leave anything in the pile that you wouldn’t want to land on.”

Making a pile, testing it, and maintaining it over the duration of the activity is a great way for kids to take responsibility for their own safety. These kinds of play foster and reward innovation, but, like so many fun activities, they can be cruel to those with poor impulse control.

So, rather than teach kids how to explore their surroundings safely, we end up with playgrounds that come with giant warning signs:

My personal favorite of the rules here is “Stop the swing before getting off.” These rules constrict the forms of play allowed in the playground, and make the parents responsible for enforcing them. The first thing you see in a playground should not be a list of the things you cannot do there.

In the category of “finding the silver lining”, our pal (and recent guest contributer), Deb Nies turned her freezer disaster into a laboratory for scientific exploration.

Following the inadvertent bottle break, we hypothesized why the bottle broke where it did. We talked about water’s power of freezing and expansion in nature; not to mention how it has widened the cracks in our garage floor during Wisconsin winters.

Cracks in concrete don’t look like the cracks in glass, but they are both created by the application of expansion forces. Making the connection (or hypothesis) between phenomenon we observe in one situation and evidence seen in another situation is one of the pillars of the scientific method.

Once again, the kitchen is shown to be the coolest room in the house.

Topic #19 – Stand on the Roof

I think Kevin is on to something when he says “I had fun knowing they were learning science.” Doing something adventurous creates a context where kids experience a heightened awareness, and the memories they form during the adventure are longer-lasting and more vivid than memories of daily rituals. Perhaps this is one way that we lay the foundations of an inquisitive life.

Aiden has a new workshop:

For a child to have a place where they can go and tinker with things on their own, well, it’s a rare thing these days. Working away, responsibly and quietly by yourself, for hours at a time, is a skill that takes practice. I’m quite sure that these are the foundations of creativity and perseverance – the necessary elements of competent adulthood – and some of the most difficult things to teach in a classroom.

While it’s not always feasible for every child to have their own workshop, most could have a toolbox and a work surface. I had an uncle who was a traveling carpenter, who told me that his woodworking shop was 90% in his head and 10% in his pickup truck. Even the most meager toolbox can open a world of possibilities – if you only have a screwdriver, you get very creative about learning how to use it.

Dad? What are cooties?

It’s one of the oldest questions known to human existence, right? Okay, well, that might be slight exaggeration, but it does seem to be a “right of passage” sort of question that all kids face at one point or another.  More on how to tackle the cooties question in a moment.

In the meantime, here’s an assignment for parents, uncles, grandparents, nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts and caregivers with a copy of “Fifty Dangerous Things” close at hand: ask the kids your know and love to flip through the book and pick out the five or ten dangerous things they’d most like to do.

What you’ll discover is that children select items that reflect their own personalities and wishes, their own need to experience what they typically cannot through the common everyday sort of activities. You’ll also discover what things they don’t want to experience. Use it as a basis for discussion and learning, and a basis for getting them involved.

I asked my own sons to flip through Gever and Julie’s wonderful book, and to write down the projects that appealed to them. Here’s the list I got back:

#8 – Throw a Spear

#11 – Throw Rocks

#15 – Throw Things from a Moving Car

#19 – Stand on the Roof

#21 – Spend an Hour Blindfolded

#23 – Break Glass

#26 – Learn Dramatic Sword Fighting

#27 – Make a Slingshot

Why did you select these items, I asked. What I heard was, throwing things is just fun, and I’ve never gotten to go up on the roof before. One of my sons asked if we could use the slingshot to break glass – a thoughtful combination of #27 and #23. Great idea! Let me get the safety glasses from the garage.

I asked my sons what things they DIDN’T want to try and they identified two:

#1 – Lick a 9-volt Battery

#4 – Kiss Hello Like the French

Customized List of Dangerous Things including the Original #50, Play Soccer in a Storm.

Again, I asked why. Well, won’t I get electrocuted if I lick a battery? And, what if electricity tastes yucky? Reasonable questions indeed. Let’s find out!

But what about the kissing bit? Why not kiss like the French? After a brief pause and a blush, I got another question – what are cooties?

Like any good parent, I thought about how best to answer this question. I considered the symbolism of cooties the invisible result of doing something unknown or unfamiliar. But didn’t think that would work and in the end said, “hey guys, who wants to go throw rocks?!” After all, throwing things is just fun … and distractions can be great learning experiences too.

Hello all. My name is Mark Heisten. I’m this week’s guest blogger. And I’m the father of two sons, ages eight and five, who have numerous bumps, scrapes and bruises (and early-onset wisdom) to show that they fearlessly get up close and personal with danger.

However, I must confess that I have been known to enable dangerous behavior and injuries within the house by playing chase down the hallway, wrestling next to the coffee table, throwing baseballs/footballs/tennis balls in the living room (sorry, mom). I am a parent, so one of my primary jobs is to keep the boys safe, right? But where do the “teaching moments” come in when one is so busy staying safe?

Me and my son at Lookout Rock.

One of those moments came a few weeks ago, while we were vacationing in Vermont. It was a warm and sunny afternoon, when my older son and I joined the Morrison brothers – Justin and Dan, on a sight-seeing visit to the top of 3,800ft Equinox Mountain. As with most of the mountains in the Taconic and Green mountain range, its rise and elevation are understated from the road. No dramatic spire. No rocky peak. It was a lush green quilt of maple, birch, pine, dogwood and ferns from base to top.

One of the few places where a trail was visible.

The excursion promised great views and a little bit of exercise before dinner. Why would danger cross my mind at all? A mountain with a perfectly good, paved road all the way to the top is no cause for alarm.

About three quarters of the way to the summit, we pulled over and discovered a trailhead with a wooden, painted arrow that said “Lookout Rock 0.8M.” It might as well have said “Adventure. Go for it!” Without hesitation, we hopped out of the car and set off through the woods.

No … we didn’t have a map. No … we didn’t have any water. No … we didn’t have any bug-spray. No … our iPhones and Blackberry’s didn’t work. In fact, only Dan had the right kind of boots for a real, Yankee hike.

Within the first half mile, we’d lost the trail … twice; and about one mile in my son slid off the side of the trail into a large granite boulder. We walked through poison ivy and fought off swarms of stinging flies. After an hour and a half, all four of us stood in the middle of a grove looking for any sign of the trail or the Summit or even Lookout Rock. Nothing. We circled the area looking for the trail line – using our own sense of direction, the shadows and the rise of the mountain. After ten minutes of truly feeling lost, we finally found a yellow stripe painted on a tree indicating the trail line and were off again. My son didn’t worry and wasn’t afraid. He enjoyed the adventure and the challenge of solving a complex and potentially high-risk problem.

By the time we found Lookout Rock and the Summit and eventually the car, we’d hiked nearly four miles through pretty rough terrain. We discovered a bear cave, a rock with graffiti from 1883, a memorial to a beloved dog and a giant sense of accomplishment.

Rock carvings from a similar excursion in 1883?

Mr. Barbo's gravestone near the summit of Equinox Mountain.

Summer seems to draw out nostalgic feelings in every adult. Personal memories frame our expectations for our own child’s summer activities. I am certainly no different but my ‘tween daughter is growing up in a huge city with barely a backyard. Things I did every day of the summer (#28 Climb a Tree) are rare treats for her. Conversely, she does some things (#26 Learn Dramatic Sword Play) at camp that I’ve never done. My initial guilt about not providing the perfect summer experience has faded though. With her different experiences she is building different competencies than I have. She brings these newfound competencies to the family and we learn together.

Learning together, while doing dangerous things, is the best part of being a family. As could be expected the dangerous things I had never done myself were the hardest to stand by and watch. No bodily harm would happen when she made her own recipe (DT #42) for a cake. Water puts out a fire so what harm could come from a tiny paper cup of water stuck over the flame (DT #13) at a camping trip? The cake was rather lumpy when it came out of the oven — lessons about mixing and the science of baking soda. And watching the cup singe and then the water boil was fascinating! The shared joy of illicit activities bonds us as colluders—separate from others who haven’t dared to climb on the roof (DT #19) or stand at the front of a canoe (DT#50)!

“Oh, you may get a few little cuts and scrapes — that’s inevitable. But don’t hurt yourself just because you didn’t pay attention to what you were doing.” 
— from Introduction to “Fifty Dangerous Things”

Gever’s words are at the core of why I contacted him earlier this year when he was in Los Angeles. In my work I encounter a good number of young children (2 to 7 years old) who are not allowed to use scissors or knives at home. Maybe parents are afraid of the curtains being cut. Or maybe they don’t want their kids to get little cuts or scrapes. But, children are curious. They naturally want to do what their parents do. Scissors are a basic tool for transforming and learning with materials and, in turn, will be part of understanding and interacting with the physical world.  Sure, your child may get scraped and cut now and then but with your help they’ll slowly learn how scissors can cut paper (and hair) and should be used when sitting down (and not to poke their brother).  These are the beginnings of safety or as Gever puts it, “to learn how to judge danger.”

Who am I and what do I do? I am Mary Beth Trautwein, Director at the reDiscover Center where we use clean, discarded materials to tinker and play with.  Essentially, we have a warehouse of loose parts and provide tools and guidance for children to construct whatever sparks their interest. I feel that our support for kids and their parents to learn skills and solve problems is among the most important things we do. In a crowded, busy city like Los Angeles how many homes have a tool bench or sewing machine? How many kids learn how to use a screw driver if cheap appliances are thrown out instead of repaired? Tinkers, young and old,  encounter obstacles along their creative path but with a little help and guidance they gain confidence and become inquisitive members of society. At the beginning of “Fifty Dangerous Things” Mike Petrich, Learning Studio Director at the Exploratorium writes, “I argue that NOT doing these things is ultimately a more dangerous proposition for ourselves and society.”

So, do these things (and more!) with your child and enjoy exploring the world together. Next time you cut something at home and you notice your child grabbing for the scissors give them a pair of their own. You’d be surprised how young children can use scissors—the girl in the photo above is less than two years old!

My old work colleage Eddie Hernandez blogs about a very tinkering-oriented way to clean a children’s toy castle repurposed as a hamster habitat.

Added on edit: Eddie pointed me to this earlier entry wherein his young engineers build an iPod docking station.

I’ve come to the end of my guest week. I’ll be handing the keyboard to Mary Beth Trautwein starting tomorrow, as the Seniors start at Tinkering School.

I’ve had fun doing this, and I hope you have enjoyed reading it.

Today here in Houston it was somewhere in the upper 90s with humidity to match, and my garage (where all the tools are) was well over 100 degrees, which makes any tinkering sessions necessarily brief for the health and well-being of both tinkerer and project.

Which got me thinking about some alternatives for those of us not blessed with viable indoor tinkering spaces or projects that won’t fit indoors (like my cars and truck) when the weather won’t cooperate.

While I’m not suggesting one should veg in front of the TV endlessly, there are a lot of shows out there now embracing the tinkering and doing-dangerous-things mindset. Besides “Mythbusters” on Discovery Channel, which is easily the most famous, and which I’ve already mentioned, there are others on various cable channels.

The Science Channel (part of the Discovery network) has regular showings of “How It’s Made”, “Factory Made”, and “How Do They Do That?” which explore how everyday objects come into being. “Deconstructed” takes stuff apart and explores how it works (which could lead to your own deconstruction sessions).

National Geographic Channel has “Cut It In Half” which is pretty much what it sounds like, and History Channel has “Sliced” which is pretty much the same premise.

Of course, there are a bewildering variety of do-it-yourself shows — my favorites, maybe for sentimental reasons, are the ones that come out of the “This Old House” family: the original show, “Ask This Old House”, and Norm Abram’s “New Yankee Workshop”. There are others on PBS and a lot of other channels including the aptly-named “DIY” channel.

I watch these kind of shows a lot more than I watch scripted TV or so-called “reality”… I figure I should at least learn something in the process.

But then remember to translate that into doing something.

And have fun doing it!