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That's an excellent video!
All parents should apply that with their kids.

That guy is a total idiot. Keep him away from my kids.

I did all those things as a kid and, IMO, his analysis is correct. My sheltered (not my choice) kids do not have half the visualization and problem-solving skills I did at there age. They don't understand the inner workings of things, nor can even conceive them.
We need idiots like him to keep the world progressing or else we'll all be trolls in article comments.

Geez, people, let kids be kids. We've done several of these already. My 8 yr old and 12 yr old have pocketknives, have driven trucks on their grandparents' farm, and have played with fire when we've had controlled burns on the property. They've probably broken the digital copyright laws somehow also. I don't know that they've thrown spears, but I'm sure they've thrown sticks (and learned quickly not to throw them at each other).
I guess I need to find an old appliance for them to take apart now. I remember doing that when I was a kid, also. I still have to know how things work, so it made an impression.

I look at the coddled world as my toddler is growing up in and fear for all the other children he plays with that they will probably never experience these things as I did, and my son will.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to teach my two year old how to whittle a spear ;-)

Well having done all of these things as a child I think it has served me well, my dad also saw fit to electrocute me and teach me about electricity. I have worked as a mentor for a couple of robotics programs, and constantly see a irrational fear of anything involving electricity thats not wrapped up inside a pre-manufactured box, if you listen to these kids you would think that a 9V battery has the power of a lightning bolt and must never ever be messed with. The other thing I tend to notice is a tremendous fear of messing up, they think they need to do everything perfectly the first time, having never even attempted anything similar before. Our public school system seams to be more about fear of messing up than encouraging learning, the kids come in so afraid of messing up that they don't even want to try, it just pisses me off especially considering how smart some of these students are.

I fall somewhere between posts 1 and 2 there, and agree completely with 3.

His ideas are sound. The wussification of the current generation of youngsters is ridiculous. The dumbing down of kids toys, along with ridiculous things like teachers refusing to use red ink to grade papers because it might make someone's little snowflake angel baby feel sad because they got an answer wrong is setting the next generation of kids up for a life full of FAIL.

I had my first pocket knife at 9. Yeah, I stole it from my dad's garage, but I had one by God. I'll never forget it, it was a tiny little black penknife with "GMAC financing" stamped on the side and one broken blade that made a decent screwdriver. Now, I never leave the house without my Gerber multi-tool because I've used it to fix, open, or hack my way into just about everything imaginable.

I used to play with fire regularly with the Boy Scouts. Now, I piss my wife off regularly by starting a fire in the woodstove with a single match, some shredded up bark, and a little blowing after she's spent 40 minutes and two fire starters trying to do it.

I can also attest to the need for young kids to learn the spatial awareness skills required to operate a motor vehicle. My parents NEVER did that with me, and when I started drivers ed I was scared s**tless. I didn't get my license until 18.

yeh, have to agree...one of the 'unfortunate' side-effects of learning is getting hurt sometimes.

Mr. Tuque- I don't think your dad did electrocute you, as it means 'to kill by electric shock': http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/electrocution

Other than the child-electrocution, I'd go along with the consensus here- kids should do more 'dangerous' and messy stuff.

I think opening the eyes of children is a great thing.
You need to let them explore as part of the learning process.

I think opening the eyes of children is a great thing.
You need to let them explore as part of the learning process.

He makes very good points and I agree with them, however, I don't think he's really the best spokesperson for getting that message across to bubble-wrapping parents.

His voice lacks confidence and his word choice could be better. He says "if you send your kid to my camp, they'll come back bruised and bloody"...not exactly a good reason to take tiny Tim out of his padded room. I think the point he was trying (not so successfully) is that if you teach kids how to properly use tools they won't get hurt by them.

I totally agree with this guy, but I also agree with Michael(previous post) that he should have picked better words however we don't need to sugar coat everything for the sake of the parents...besides if you want your child to be successful in life they have to learn and when u learn u make mistakes, it's not mistakes that are the problem but the fact that you learn from them and that same thing applies to when u get hurt so you know you wont get hurt again if in a similar situation...after all life is one big test...its not the score that counts but what you learned from the experience.

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