I was recently reading “The Dangerous Book for Boys” by Gonn and Hal Iggulden. The contents included (but were not limited to): the greatest paper airplane in the world, how to play stickball, building a tree-house, dinosaurs, fishing, making a go-cart, spiders, juggling, making a paper hat/water-bomb, skipping stones, coin tricks, marbles, tree climbing, and pirates.
As I read I was waiting for the “pay-off,” some deeply meaningful philosophical “ah-ha!” moment where everything would be tied together for me in a neat little package that I could take with me. I eventually had to accept the fact that the “lecture” I was waiting for was not going to be delivered by the authors of “The Dangerous Book for Boys: The perfect book for every boy from 8 to 80.”
Nope, the authors were too smart for that. Instead, they let children who read the book (like my 7 year old son) discover the wonder of new concepts, while they let adults who read the book (like me) discover the wonder of vaguely familiar old concepts. I had become too engrossed in day to day responsibilities and lost some of my ability to have fun (and thereby more fully connect with my kids).
In short order, I gathered up my kids, made a sword from some scraps in the shed and then went on a kayak ride, where we stormed the high seas, just like every good pirate should.
Here is a (very incomplete) checklist of some great things for “Maximum Strength Parents” to do with their children:
___Laugh
___Catch Lightening Bugs
___Climb Trees
___Color
___Connect the Dots
___Cut-and-Paste
___Have Fun with Numbers
___Hide-and-Seek
___Tell Jokes (e.g., Knock-Knock…; Why Did the Chicken…?)
___Sing
___Spin until you fall down
___Play “Rock, Scissor, Paper”
___Have a Staring Contest – The first to blink loses
___Go “Camping” overnight on your living room floor
___Jump in a puddle and splash each other
___Yell in a Megaphone
___Play Basketball (with Socks and a Hamper)
___Make a Paper Airplane
___Give Horse Back Rides (on your back)
___Tumble
___Do Mazes
___Play Ring-Around-the-Rosie
___Ride a Bike
___Build a Go-Cart
___Build a Tree-House, a cardboard-house, or a house from couch pillows
___Do Puzzles
___Have a Tea Party
___Play Tic-Tac-Toe
___Try some Tongue Twisters
___Do Word Search Puzzles
___Wrestle
___And 1,000 other activities
