Let Your Children Bounce

One could feel guilty when reading articles like this one on Home Trampoline Danger, if you have, as we do, a big trampoline and have had one for almost all your youngest child’s life. Who is, as I write, bouncing on it.

Children can get hurt on trampolines and hurt badly. Got that. I see the argument against trampolines. They’re dangerous, children don’t need them, they can get their exercise in other ways, they’re dangerous, some children will do stupid things on them, they’re dangerous.

On the other hand, trampolines provide a pleasure no other toy does. Everyone loves bouncing on trampolines. And there is great value, as I wrote in The Anxious Parent, in letting your children do something a little dangerous when it offers the pleasures the trampoline does. You help them learn the insouciance and freedom necessary for nobility.