Benefit and Risk Assessment for the Very Young

A very common question asked of me at hopscotch is "Do you think this would be safe for a (baby, 8 year old, 3 year old, whatever)?" To which my very uncommon reply is "Well, I can't tell you if it would be safe for yours, but I probably would have given it to mine. I also have a trampoline in my back yard and my twelve year old has access to most tools in the shop, so my safety standards might not be the same as yours."
We bought our trampoline used out of the thrifties (before Craigs List) when my son Devon was four. He is now 18. Dozens of children have spent countless hours jumping, sleeping, reading, sparring, and giggling on that trampoline. Yes, there have been injuries, stitches, bumps, and near concussions, but the experiences these kids have had outweigh the risks they have undertaken. I meet so many parents these days who are terrified of exposing their children to any risk at all, and I wonder if we are not stunting an entire generation? I allow my children a great deal of freedom to roam the neighborhood, to build things from scrap in the yard, to paint and draw on the walls in their bedrooms, to take risks, ride skateboards, take their bikes off of jumps they built. They walk to the corner store and conduct transactions, they go down town and buy ice cream and visit their favorite shops. This is not because I am negligent, or lazy as I can tell you it takes more effort to talk them through these risks, and to clean up the wounds when things go awry than it does to plop them in front of a nice safe television. River is the name of the boy standing in the top of the arborvitae hedge. He is my nephew. He is standing on a platform that the kids built into the hedge about five years ago without my knowledge. They got the scrap, they got the tools, and they built this perch for spying on the world from the hedge. The list of crazy things they have done without my permission goes on and on. My children take risks every day, and I encourage them to do so. I joke that if they are dumb enough to do XYZ I don't want them in the gene pool anyway, but really I feel that I am giving them important tools for creating a vital active life. Most of us get more fearful with age. Our children need to learn what they can accomplish before the limitations even occur to them.