Raising kids to be confident, productive human beings requires endurance, patience and commitment.
It also requires a willingness to embrace adventure over fear.
Because of the instant availability of our news delivery systems, we always have a steady supply of stories about the worst things people are saying and doing to one another.
This can give us the false impression that the world is a nasty, brutish jungle from which we must protect our kids, at all costs.
Fear can cause us to limit our kids activities or to micro-manage them in order to avoid potential danger.
We live in such a fear-based culture today that the idea of letting our children go out and face the world seems foolhardy to some.
Obviously, there are age-appropriate considerations, but when we don’t allow our kids to explore, we risk harming them by creating fear-inspired limits.
This willingness to allow our children to have adventures needn’t wait until they’re adults.
Yet how many parents would quail at the thought of their son or daughter going off into the woods, by themselves, with a fishing pole or a rifle?
Our children become better equipped to face the world when we teach them boldness by allowing them to learn how to stumble and rise again.
They learn they can do hard things and that they don’t need to look to someone else to learn how to manage themselves.
Letting our children embrace adventure can make them stronger and more resilient, if we let it.
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