{"id":1680,"date":"2013-01-04T12:10:13","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T19:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billintheblank\/?p=1680"},"modified":"2013-01-04T12:10:13","modified_gmt":"2013-01-04T19:10:13","slug":"heres-a-quick-way-to-destroy-your-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithwalkers\/2013\/01\/heres-a-quick-way-to-destroy-your-kids\/","title":{"rendered":"Here&#8217;s a Quick Way to Destroy Your Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>Our kids have never been good at following the crowd <a href=\"http:\/\/sethgodin.typepad.com\/seths_blog\/2007\/02\/sheepwalking.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">or \u201csheepwalking\u201d as Seth Godin<\/a>\u00a0calls it. Or following the signs at local parks that read:<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cStay on Prepared Trails\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/billintheblank\/files\/2013\/01\/Stay-on-the-Prepared-Trails.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-1681\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/billintheblank\/files\/2013\/01\/Stay-on-the-Prepared-Trails-1024x621.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"548\" height=\"352\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When I was a kid at the same parks, there were no signs. There were barely paths.<\/p>\n<p>The whole point of going was to get off the trail. Explore a mysterious cave. Jump across a tricky precipice. Race up the side of a cliff that was likely to cause a bruise or scrape or both. No, I didn\u2019t wear a helmet.<\/p>\n<p>There was one thing I wasn\u2019t trying to feel.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Safe.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I wonder how my children are supposed to learn to explore, take risks, or be creative when everywhere they go they read stern warnings to stay on life\u2019s prepared trails. How boring is that! No wonder video games seem enjoyable. They\u2019re risk-free. Aren\u2019t they?<\/p>\n<p>Imagine the Wright brothers needing to file for an FAA permit. In triplicate.<\/p>\n<p>What if the Oregon Trail had been a Department of Transportation project?<\/p>\n<p>How did education even happen for two hundred years without federal lunch guidelines? If parents and kids can\u2019t figure out how to pack their own lunches, what are schools good for? Really.<\/p>\n<p>At least they\u2019re \u2013 what\u2019s that word?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Safe.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Pioneers \u2013 or heretics as Seth Godin calls them \u2014 care little for their own safety and much for carving out a path for others to pursue their dreams.<\/p>\n<p>Our faith drives us to see what\u2019s beyond the next bend, over the next hill, in the back of that shadowy crevice. It is, unfortunately, the natural way of things that our faith soon becomes memorialized as a religion of rules and procedures designed by sincere \u2013 and fearful \u2013 people. To maintain the status quo. To keep it \u2013 how did it go?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Safe.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Why is it that when I think about the future my kids face in this world of prepared trails, that <em>safe<\/em> is the last word I think of?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our kids have never been good at following the crowd or \u201csheepwalking\u201d as Seth Godin\u00a0calls it. Or following the signs at local parks that read: \u201cStay on Prepared Trails\u201d When I was a kid at the same parks, there were no signs. There were barely paths. The whole point of going was to get off [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1084,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,33,46],"tags":[32,1068,14,1071,297,51],"class_list":["post-1680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-family","category-leadership-2","tag-children","tag-culture","tag-education","tag-family","tag-kids","tag-thinking"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Here&#039;s a Quick Way to Destroy Your Kids<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Our kids have never been good at following the crowd or &quot;sheepwalking&quot; as Seth Godin\u00a0calls it. 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