Playing with fire and knives plus the preteen driving excursions; I guess I grew up OK!
Man you could not keep me out of the trees..
Bill

I really feel sorry for the kids of today. Many of them can't even THINK of interesting things to do, much less do them.

When my nephew was just old enough to get into Little League, he was proudly going up to bat for the very first time, and my sister's last words to him were "Don't get hit!" Then he shied away from all the pitches and was struck out without even swinging. Poor kid.

Sue

Yeah, they left out climbing trees. My oldest fell out of a tree this fall and broke two fingers, but they healed. I told him to land on his head next time - its harder.

What I can't figure out is how I never managed to break any bones as a kid. Burns, cuts, abrasions, punctures, sprains... that's another story.

"What I can't figure out is how I never managed to break any bones as a kid."

You grew up on the Learn As You Grow plan, you started young, and learned more as you kept trying new things.

Sue

I think if you start young too you build up some strength. When me son was just a year old we would take him to the play place at the mall and he would follow the 3,4,5 etc year old kids up the slide and parents would come over to us amazed at how well he gets around when he had just learned to walk. He went from barely being able to walk to climb anything within a couple week. he's fallen plenty of times but manages to not get hurt as he's built up his muscles pretty tough.
climbing is one of the issues we have with MIL, every time he hears a siren he climbs the back of our couch to look out the window to see the fire trucks and she yells at him for it and we tell her to not yell at him that thats the only way he can see out the window and its our couch, if it was her couch he was climbing on she she didn't want him to it would be different. She wrote my wife a pretty nasty letter just this weekend telling her how he's going to be dead or crippled because we let him climb on things.

Hi Eugene,

My son did a similar thing when he was young (13 years ago). We lived at the end of a bush road and had a big black lab dog who was only allowed in the house if he stayed on the mat in front of the door. My then toddler son was too short to see out the window in the door and would stand on the sleeping dog to elevate himself. That dog would not move even as our son was stepping all over him, he would sometimes fall off but with no major injuries. That dog is long since gone now, we miss him.

No MIL problems, I wish mine lived closer than 2 hours away.

Mike

Not to mention that the owner of the teased animal, and the animal itself, will be held liable for the kid getting hurt even if he was deliberately antagonizing the animal. There are no "actions = consequences" lessons anymore for fear of being sued by parents.

Broke 2 bones as a kid on that Learn as you grow plan - One, I jumped, landed wrong, and broke my little toe on my right foot - and when I say I jumped, I'm talking hopping down about 6 inches - just a bad landing - the worst part? Did it the night after school let out, and it didn't heal enough for me to walk without crutches till 3 days after school started - yep, lost a whole summer - except I built a real cool soap box car for me to get around in...

The other, I went to put my hand on a friends shoulder - he jerked away - just hard enough to get a hairline crack in the last joint of my pinkie

I kind of think that I just managed to squeeze into that last generation that got to really play. I never broke a bone either (knock on wood), and only sprained my wrist (once).

But every weekend I'd be killing Commie hords in the neighborhood, bike riding, playing at Grandma's... I'm 29, a suburb/city boy that still got lots of camping from Dad and later the Boy Scouts. So, I carry a knife (only cut myself once), not afraid of the dark, probably could spend a night out here in MI if I absolutely had to, can use a rifle, bow & arrow, canoe & knows how to whittle. Didn't even get Nintendo till a few years after it came out. And, to be honest, there's nothing in my parents' house after Nintendo-64. As you can see, video games were never the focus of my brother or my life... though he has plenty of friends to play them with.

No kids of my own, but I swear that they're not getting Gameboy or a Playstation until they're 10. Hopefully my future-wife (she's gotta be out there somewhere) agrees!

Working from head to toes:
1. Crack in bone on right side of forehead
2. Six large scars on skull and neck
3. Broke nose
4. Broke 18 ribs and sternum in two places (surgical event)
5. Lost bottom quarter of both lungs (surgical event)
6. Broke left elbow in three places (really bad softball game)
7. Burn scars on back of right hand
8. Cat-bite scar on left middle finger
9. Broke left pinkie
10. Broke left ankle
11. Broke bone in center of left foot.

-Blast aka "Lucky"