I was on this chair lift once and i was sitting with a psychiatrist and then the chair ahead of us was a mom and in the chair ahead of her was her son. Okay, he was probably nine years old. I was, i don't know. 19.

18. 19.. We're going up one of those chair lifts that um. It's not really a chair, lift it's like a chair, lift that you take to get to the chair, lift not that high, maybe 10 to 15 feet high, and i don't know what the little kid was doing.

This happens, but somehow he worked his little butt off the chair so that he was hanging by the little safety bar like this. The safety bar was under his arms. He was hanging like this and dangling off of the chair. It's probably eight feet, maybe ten feet below it and the mom started screaming and the psychiatrist i was with yelled at her mother.

You are freaking your child out, and then he turned to me and said your job as a parent is to teach your children to be the masters of their environment, not to fear it. This video could easily be misconstrued as me, exploiting my son for a youtube. Video, so i just want to give you four disclaimers number one. My son worked his way up to these activities in the footage, i'm about to show you over the course of years.

Uh he's doing none of these things for the first time, two, these activities are always done under extreme supervision, usually within arm's reach, number three he was drawn to these activities of his own accord. I did not push him. I simply offered him and continue to offer him encouragement, wow, nice job and four. I want to be very clear about this.

I am not recommending these activities to you and your three-year-old. A few years ago, i read this book the coddling of the american mind, and this video is me showing examples of my strategies for raising a confident, resilient and anti-fragile child number five, the power drill, the drill is potentially dangerous because of its torque, the bit, where The chuck can get entangled into his hair and maybe wind up into his head. This drill has a clutch that we turn all the way down to substantially weaken the drill's torque. You can see here.

My two fingers can seize the chuck, even with the drill at full throttle. We also set the drill to its slowest speed before he uses it. Is there a bit in there? Also, we put a dull phillips bit in a bit holder with a spinning collar that won't hurt his fingers if he grabs it. The cordless drill builds his hand and forearm strength, improves his manual dexterity and teaches him to focus slide it no, the other way, yeah.

There's a bit in there and the only time he's ever hurt himself with the drill is when he's dropped it on his foot, but he knows he's supposed to wear shoes in the shop number four sharp scissors here. Do you want to trim the tree this one's boring? They teach him uh to use scissors in school, he's much more careful than one would expect. These scissors can cut fabric they're so sharp, but he's never cut himself. Thank god and uh.

He stays pretty focused when he uses scissors number three pop-pop boat. This one actually is a toy. I saw one of these in the anime movie ponyo. This is how it works.

I think there's a little boiler that you fill with water. We use a baby tylenol, syringe ball up one square of toilet paper and soak it in rubbing alcohol. The idea is that the fire boils the water and the steam pops out of these pipes to propel the boat. It's dangerous because it's a flaming steel boat that chases my naked three-year-old around an enclosed space.

I suppose there's a slight chance. It could light the shower curtain on fire too, and this toy teaches him situational awareness focus yes and firefighting. Uh, i'm too big to fit in there number two ladders, fences, walls and trees, climbing toys. This kid's been a climber since basically the womb he was born in the santa monica mountains right here.

Actually so climbing has been nurtured into him he's wearing that helmet because we rode our bike to this tree, the first time he climbed this batting cage. I honestly didn't think he'd be able to do it, so i let him and then he just scaled all the way up to the roof. Maybe it's only eight or ten feet high. It doesn't look that high here, but it scared the hell out of me watching him do this when he scares me to death, i have to make sure i don't project my fear onto him and, like i said before, he is not climbing this batting cage for The first time in this footage and before he climbed it the first time i climbed it first to check the sturdiness of the roof nice throw he wanted, the balls that were stuck up there.

Now we have the balls and the number one most dangerous thing. We let him play with fire, and my logic is that, by allowing my son to experiment with fire, i'm hoping fire will become less and less exciting and exotic to him and eventually just be in his mind. Another boring tool that he understands the gravity of and potential of at first, when we first started doing this, i held the torch and he aimed it until he earned my trust and before we even did this activity. I installed this wheel on the valve knob, so i can kill the propane very quickly if needed and thank god you know, we've never had a problem, it's dramatic sure but in my opinion, a lot less dangerous than say a hatchet which he's not allowed to use.

Yet, okay, so what happened to the kid? When the bone comes through the skin? That's called the compound fraction just kidding. He was fine. The kid came to a lower spot. Skier came helped him off the lift, but i'll bet he never scooched his butt off the seat.

Again this week on the patreon archival videos with directors commentary on my patreon right there, the link is right. There.