Get children to work, not play, says Grylls
PARENTS should get their children to help with their work rather than play games, Bear Grylls has said, because “kids want to get involved”.
The television adventurer said that he encourages his sons to experience risk, and that while he is “not great at children’s games” the boys love it if he gets them to help him to pack for expeditions.
Speaking to The Sunday Times Magazine, the star of Channel 4’s The Island with Bear Grylls added: “Traditionally, that’s how parentchild relationships were. If you could rewind 200 years, its was, ‘Come and help me in the fields. Help me with my carpentry’. Kids want to get involved.”
Grylls, 43, is married to Shara, 43, and the couple have three boys: Jesse, 14, Marmaduke, 11, and Huckleberry, eight. The family spend the summer months living on a remote private island off the Welsh coast and also have a houseboat on the River Thames. Grylls has previously said that children should be allowed to play with knives because it is “empowering” for them to learn to do something dangerous safely.
His 2015 six-point “manifesto for children” included “take risks”, as well as climb mountains and ban computer games. He said at the time: “I think that being on the computer all the time erodes imagination.”
Grylls seems to have relaxed a little about screen time, however, telling The Sunday Times that his youngest son is a fan of the game Minecraft. “The main thing for me is, don’t become a slave to screens, make them a slave to you,” he said.