Parents, maybe we should let the kids climb trees!

Parents, remember when we were young? Do you remember something we loved to do when we were kids? That’s how it is! We loved to play outside, right? Do you remember something we loved to do outdoors? It was playing outdoors and outside of adult supervision and control, right? And isn’t it true that one of the fun and independent things we used to do outdoors and out of sight of our parents was to climb trees?

To tell the truth, sometimes our parents saw us climbing trees through the kitchen window, but they rarely stopped us. Instead, they just prepared the Band-Aids in case we scraped one of our knees. I guess our parents must have been at least a little nervous seeing us through the kitchen window, but they always seemed able to put aside their feelings of fear. They stayed in the house and allowed us to learn and grow outside through well-calculated risk-taking that built resilience. Our tree climbing sometimes ended with a Band-Aid on our knees, but it also brought smiles to our faces. We had fun, we overcame our fears and we achieved something worthwhile, which was to climb higher than the day before.

Today our children rarely go outside and rarely climb trees. Also, they are rarely outside of adult supervision and therefore rarely forced to solve problems on their own. Sometimes I wish one of my kids would ask me to climb a tree, or better yet, that he didn’t ask me, but just did. Go ahead, climb that tree! Get some exercise outside and put down those electronics.

Now, as my grandfather always said, “Go learn, lead, and lead the way to a better world for all of us. Parents, maybe we should let our kids climb trees again. It might be good for them. And once more, parents, thank you in advance for everything you do, and everything you will do…