With our own children, we have expected them to make their own breakfasts and lunches on school days since they were in elementary school, as well as to feed the pets daily and do their own laundry every week. We also, gradually, exposed them to a wide range of risks. By the time they were ten years old, they were trustworthy on top of mesas in Eastern Washington, with coral snakes in the Amazon, in forests and surf at various locations (but less competent in cities). When they did get hurt in minor ways, we didn’t put bandages on “boo-boos”; instead, we told them to get up when they fell and
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