Children need to take more risks

The story today of our rounder children and the need to go outside makes me think of the time I brought my (then) 91-year-old mother to my school to talk to my history class about life during the Depression in Ottawa.

One of the questions put by a student still has her considering what we have come to: “Mrs. Abra, what did you do after school?” (Because it was quite obvious she could not play on a computer or watch TV.) Her answer, of course, was: We played outside, climbed trees, played tag and ball, skated in the park in winter and came in for supper hungry.

The looks on the kids’ faces were priceless; they were astounded that children were encouraged to do such risky things.

We need to help kids learn how to assess risk for themselves, and to be more selfsufficient.

The fear level is through the roof, then we wonder why more university students are succumbing to paralyzing anxiety.

It is not just physical fitness, but mental fitness for life that we are coddling out of the younger generation. Eleanor Abra, Ottawa