By:Linda Sapadin
All parents are interested in creating a safe environment for their children. Some parents, however, take this to an extreme and seek to create a risk-free life for their kids. Hopefully, they will fail in their endeavor and give up trying.
Risk is a wonderful thing for all people and absolutely essential for young people. When life is too safe, too predictable, people become bored and irritable and will do whatever they need to do to create their own endorphin rush. And therein lies the trouble. For if you are a young person facing yet another monotonous, meaningless day, anything exciting and different that is presented to you can be very appealing. So appealing that you take no time at all to assess whether it's really a dumb risk or a risk that will serve you well, helping you to challenge your limits and step outside your comfort zone.
Kids intuitively know that they are never going to get what they want out of life without taking some risks. And that's good. For the rewards of risk can be enormous. Of course, parents are mostly concerned about the flip side of the coin -- the fact that every risk carries the possibility of failure or danger. And parents want their kids to succeed and to be safe.
In the interest of safety, however, I believe that too many parents have overemphasized caution, to the detriment of their children's development. Here are some suggestions on how to counteract that tendency:
(Please embolden 1st sentence of each of the following 3 points)
