It is natural to desire to protect your children from danger. A great deal of raising a very young child is spent policing what may go in their mouth (No dear, not the shoes, or the dog toys!). But while it is important to keep cleaning solutions and cigarette butts out of a child’s mouth, this sort of exploration prepares children’s immune systems for potential threats down the road. Children need to be taught responsibility, and the only way to learn it is to be responsible for something. While babies start off not being able to be responsible for even themselves, a parent will find themselves being pestered for a pet before long. You can, and should, trust your child with a pet. Indeed with taking apart an old radio, a VCR (I don’t need to say old here, do I?), even your car. The results won’t always seem positive, but letting your child experiment is letting your child learn.

        The things which you should not let your child do form an incredibly short list. LEGO toy blocks allow children to get a sense of the eternal truth that it is easier to destroy something than to build it. These toys begin to teach lessons, but moving into the real world will bring a wider variety of important truths into play. There is no need to plan with LEGO pieces, they can be reassembled infinitely. Building with concrete is, unfortunately, more difficult. It is not much more complex, however. Mixing and pouring concrete can be accomplished by an adult and a child, even one of young age. Constructing a real world object helps children understand the consequences of their actions. A well made concrete piling which supports a woodshed (another construction project a child can help with) will last for decades. By seeing that he or she can produce an object which is functional, a child learns that the consequences of his or her actions can be long lasting.

        The woodshed brings us to another important experiment for children to undertake. Children are almost universally intrigued by fire. This gives rise to a near universal parental campaign encouraging children to not play with matches. But where building something teaches a child the value of hard work, building a fire teaches the lesson that even destructive things can have beneficial results, if well enough controlled. Fire, especially a bonfire or campfire, has its own built in reward mechanism. A well built, well controlled fire can be used to roast marshmallows.

        At this point, parents are recoiling in fear. Where does this stop, apart from at the ashes of my former home? The key to teaching these lessons is twofold: supervision and timing. By balancing these two factors you model, as a parent, the amount of risk involved. By teaching a child to make something out of wood before showing him or her how to build a fire, you establish that fire requires more care than a hammer and nails. By allowing a child to build something on their own once they turn a certain age, you establish that they are capable and trustworthy. These two features change over time, as well. A five year old can build a fire with close supervision, but by ten, a child should be able to build a fire with observation, rather than supervision.

        As nerve racking as the supervising might be, it is important for a child to cut themselves chopping onions before they must make their own meals, to burn themselves before they start an internal combustion engine. These mistakes will stay with the person who takes the time to make them, and the lessons learned will be valuable beyond cooking and driving.