Archive for the 'children' Category

30
Aug
09

Are we raising our kids to be wimps?

The incoherent ramblings of a clearly disturbed individual aside, most parents would agree that defending a decision which resulted in sending a seven-year-old would-be airplane pilot plunging to her death is pretty stupid.

On the other hand, we don’t want our kids to grow up to be wimps, afraid to take risks, push themselves, put themselves in a little danger to see if they can come out of it OK.

Canada Squamish Smoke Bluffs mountain climbing

See that cliff? The little red-haired girl climbed it as part of a five-day Extreme Adventures camp we booked her into before leaving on holiday in Canada.

It’s a good thing she had that day of rock climbing, one day where with good instruction and the right gear, she was tested to do her best in a risky situation.

Because the other four days of this camp were anything but Extreme Adventures.

On day one, the kids walked about 2km to the Squamish Adventure Centre, played some games, and watched a movie.

Day Two was for mountain biking, though it really wasn’t. They had them riding along crushed gravel trails.

Whoa.

Day Three was for wakeboarding, a sport like water skiing. They spent most of the day getting to a lake 50km away to bob about in a boat as each kid took turns pulling the one single wetsuit on and off, and then trying to wakeboard.

The last day they took them to a lake for swimming. Swimming! Not exactly Extreme Adventure, but at least it involves getting a little wet.

Ah, but before swimming in the lake, they had to put on life jackets.

What??? I know about lawyers and liability, but life jackets to go swimming?

I clearly remember having checked the box beside FISH on the form which asked Does Your Child Swim Like

a Rock

a Dog

a Fish

And if she swims like a FISH, she doesn’t need a bloody LIFE JACKET!

She’d been in a day camp with them before, so I knew the first few minutes of Day One I’d be filling out release forms. But this time? They handed me such a stack of papers to sign, paragraphs to initial and have witnessed to fully absolve the District of Squamish of any and all liability should harm come to my child, it took nearly 20 minutes to get through it.

“It’s because there are private companies teaching the rock climbing and the wakeboarding,” they said. “It’s for their protection.”

But even after virtually telling them they could dangle my kid by the ankles from a cliff before dropping her head-first into a bear pit and I wouldn’t sue – couldn’t sue, because I’d signed that right away – I still went away happy, eagerly anticipating great tales of Extreme Adventure.

Instead she got one good day of rock-climbing and four days of pissing around, topped off by five hours on the final day sitting on the beach for five hours because she refused – and rightly so – to swim with a life jacket.

Not that she minded pissing around. At the end of the five days there was an evaluation form to fill out, and she was generally positive about the atmosphere at the camp, the counsellor and the other kids, so what the hell.

I couldn’t help thinking, though, that if this is the benchmark for what passes for adventure in a child’s life these days, we’re telling them it’s OK to be overly cautious in life, it’s OK to coast along without taking risks, it’s OK to be afraid of getting yourself in a little danger.

Life jackets.

I would start in on how hrrrmmmmfff when I was a kid before mountain biking, wakeboarding or bloody factor 45 sunblock was even heard of we’d tear out the back door without so much as a bottle of water, scamper up through the forest to find paths up through the rocks to the lake to go swimming and the only life vest was sitting miles away at the bottom of somebody’s boat under lock and key because who even bothered to wear one at all anyway?

Ah well. Even adults wear helmets skiing these days. Now that’s wimpy.

14
Jun
09

Boy hitting the bricks

Hamburg hafen harbour boy blue bricks

Sometimes it’s only after you get home that you notice the shot.  Just setting up a long telephoto down some stairs, framing the photo when suddenly this kid pops into view.

Click.

I like how his clothes match the railing and the bricks, how he’s caught startled by something and whirling around, and how the lens seems to place him on an impossibly uphill slope.

Maybe it’s better in black and white?

hamburg pier boy stairs bricks black and white

I don’t know.  What do you think?

11
Apr
09

A precious couple of hours in the snow

I forgot to post this!

Damn.  I wrote this in mid-February.  I should clean out the draft file more often.

Between work and travel and home, the homeside has been coming up short lately.

So when I had a day and a half off this past weekend, I made the most of my time with the little red-haired girl.  Sounds trite, but true: every time I look at her she seems a little taller, her face a little fuller.

But though she’s right on the cusp, there’s still a lot of kid left in her.  Sunday morning we hauled the sled out of the basement, strapped it to her bike – the one that still looks too crappy to steal, I hope – and headed to the Elbe riverbank hoping there’d be enough snow for a bit of sliding.

The few flakes that had fallen over the past couple of days weren’t much, but it was just enough to turn the slope into a slippery mash of mud, slush and screaming kids.

Can this really be only eight weeks ago?  With the warmth of Spring the last few days, we’ve already had the frisbee and football out for a few throws.  I hope she’ll never grow out of that, because I know I won’t.

26
Feb
09

Talking to an 11-year-old about freaks

The little red-haired girl and I are real fans of the cartoon film Madagascar. We’ve watched the first one so often, we know most of the lines by heart. We can still get a laugh out of everyday situations where a line applies.

One of my favourite lines is when the King Julian, voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen, turns to Maurice and says:

Shame on you! Do you not realise you have insulted the freaks?

The other day I repeated the freaks line and then asked her:

You know what the word freak means, eh?

Not really…

It’s not a nice way to talk about someone, and you actually shouldn’t use it because it’s an insult, but it used to be what they called a baby that wasn’t born normal, like if it had two heads or something. They used to have what they called freak shows, where you’d pay money to see people like that.

Have there really been babies born with two heads?

Sure… you know about Siamese twins, right? Doctors try to separate them at birth if they can, but sometimes, it’s impossible. I saw a movie once on the plane about two teenage girls. They were one girl from the shoulders down, but on their shoulders, they had two heads.

Really?

Yeah. They actually lead a normal life. They’re treated like separate people, each has her own personality, they go to school, have friends, play sports, they can drive a car, have hobbies – everything we do. It’s amazing, really. I’ll find you a video of them and show you. I saw it first when I was on a flight to Canada when I went by myself that time, and I couldn’t believe it.

—After watching the video, she asks:

What if they get a boyfriend?

Yeah, what if one falls in love with someone, but the other one doesn’t?

— We left it at that.




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