Learning

Fifty Dangerous Things

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Mildly risky fun

The idea of this thin book is that danger is something kids need to learn to handle by experience. The 50 small experiments in this book can potentially cause a minor injury (although they are unlikely to), but are never really seriously dangerous. In fact most of them aren’t dangerous at all, but at least they are fun. There are no special techniques, secret formulas or exclusive knowhow here that everyday knowledge or a quick internet search would not turn up. The activities are the kinds of things kids will sometimes do on their own — at least in the past. It’s too bad a book like this is needed today, and maybe you, or folks you know, don’t need it, but if the kids in your life live a very structured and constantly supervised existence, this is a way to supervise a little danger. The book is designed to be read either by parents or kids. Most activities have clear instructions. We’ve been going through the book, letting the kids choose. It encourages them try stuff, and to see the trade off in risks and gains in many things. Mostly we use this as a primer for more dangerous things to try later on.

-- KK 01/25/10

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