Teach your children to be independent this summer

The following is taken from the free thought project about freedom for kids and it was written by  Daisy Luther, to read the entire article go here

Did you do any of these things and live to tell the tale? 

While I did make my children wear bicycle helmets and never took them on the highway in the back of a pick-up, many of the things on this list were not just allowed, they were encouraged. Before someone pipes up with outrage (because they’re *cough* offended) I’m not suggesting that you throw caution to the wind and let your kids attempt to hang-glide off the roof with a sheet attached to a kite frame. (I’ve got a scar proving that makeshift hang-gliding is, in fact, a terrible idea). Common sense evolves, and I obviously don’t recommend that you purposely put your children in unsafe situations with a high risk of injury.

But, let them be kids. Let them explore and take reasonable risks. Let them learn to live life without fear.

Raise your hand if you survived a childhood in the 60s, 70s, and 80s that included one or more of the following, frowned-upon activities (raise both hands if you bear a scar proving your daredevil participation in these dare-devilish events):

• Riding in the back of an open pick-up truck with a bunch of other kids
• Leaving the house after breakfast and not returning until the streetlights came on, at which point, you raced home, ASAP so you didn’t get in trouble
• Eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the school cafeteria
• Riding your bike without a helmet
• Riding your bike with a buddy on the handlebars, and neither of you wearing helmets
• Drinking water from the hose in the yard
• Swimming in creeks, rivers, ponds, and lakes (or what they now call *cough* “wild swimming“)
• Climbing trees (One park cut the lower branches from a tree on the playground in case some stalwart child dared to climb them)
• Having snowball fights (and accidentally hitting someone you shouldn’t)
• Sledding without enough protective equipment to play a game in the NFL
• Carrying a pocket knife to school (or having a fishing tackle box with sharp things on school property)
• Camping
• Throwing rocks at snakes in the river
• Playing politically incorrect games like Cowboys and Indians
• Playing Cops and Robbers with *gasp* toy guns
• Pretending to shoot each other with sticks we imagined were guns
• Shooting an actual gun or a bow (with *gasp* sharp arrows) at a can on a log, accompanied by our parents who gave us pointers to improve our aim. Heck, there was even a marksmanship club at my high school
• Saying the words “gun” or “bang” or “pow pow” (there’s actually a freakin’CODE about “playing with invisible guns”)
• Working for your pocket money well before your teen years
• Taking that money to the store and buying as much penny candy as you could afford, then eating it in one sitting
• Eating pop rocks candy and drinking soda, just to prove we were exempt from that urban legend that said our stomachs would explode
• Getting so dirty that your mom washed you off with the hose in the yard before letting you come into the house to have a shower
• Writing lines for being a jerk at school, either on the board or on paper
• Playing “dangerous” games like dodgeball, kickball, tag, whiffle ball, and red rover (The Health Department of New York issued a warning about the “significant risk of injury” from these games)
• Walking to school alone

Come on, be honest.  Tell us what crazy stuff you did as a child.

Teach your children to be independent this summer.
We didn't get trophies just for showing up. We were forced, yes, forced – to do actual work and no one called protective services. And we gained something from all of this.

Our independence.
The Organic Prepper Daisy Luther lives on a small organic homestead in Northern California.  She is the author of The Organic Canner,  The Pantry Primer: A Prepper’s Guide to Whole Food on a Half-Price Budget, and The Prepper’s Water Survival Guide: Harvest, Treat, and Store Your Most Vital Resource. On her website, The Organic Prepper.

Daisy uses her background in alternative journalism to provide a unique perspective on health and preparedness, and offers a path of rational anarchy against a system that will leave us broke, unhealthy, and enslaved if we comply.  

Daisy’s articles are widely republished throughout alternative media. You can follow her on Facebook, Pinterest,  and Twitter.  Read more here:

Summer is just started and you hear I'm Bored

Some thoughts on getting through the summer from Granparents.com for harried parents as well as grandparents

1. Play silly charades, says Penny Warner, author of Kids’ Party Games & Activities (Meadowbrook, 1993). Fill out cards with offbeat suggestions, such as Santa Claus on a tropical vacation or a monkey trick-or-treating. Take turns writing or drawing a card and acting out the phrase.

2. Put on a play. Kids can make up their own dramas or reenact favorite movies and TV shows. Use old cast-off clothes to make costumes.

3. Hold a talent show. All the kids can show off their skills, whether it’s doing a cartwheel, telling a joke, or singing a song. This also can be an opportunity to get to know your grandchildren better

4. Turn your names into a game. Warner suggests drawing a grid of five boxes down and five across; put the first five letters of the child’s name across in the top five boxes and one category down the five side boxes. Set a timer and have the kids write down an object in each category that starts with the letter at the top of the column. For example, if the child’s name is Rebecca, and the category is “Animals,” she could write "Rhino" and then "Elephant." The winner is the person with the most boxes filled when time expires.

5. Make papier mache figures. Dip paper strips in a mix of white glue and water (or make your own paste from flour and water) and layer them to cover a balloon. "Any balloon with newspaper, flour and water can become a pig, butterfly, or family bust!" says San Francisco educator Lonna Corder

6. Make soap sculptures. Mix powdered Ivory laundry soap and water until it takes on a clay-like consistency. Mold it into fun shapes. The best part: Any spills clean up easily.

7. Make gross goo and slippery slime. Warner’s slime recipe is simple: one cup cornstarch mixed with one cup water. To make goo, mix one cup cold water and eight ounces of white glue in one bowl. Also mix one tablespoon liquid starch and one-half cup hot water in another bowl. Add a few drops of your favorite food coloring to the starch and combine the two mixtures. The fun thing about goo and slime is that they are messy! Save yourself from a big cleanup and play outside.

8. Turn your kitchen into a sculpture studio. Make your own clay: Mix four cups flour, one cup salt, and one-and-one-half cups water. Mold figures and bake them in a 250-degree oven for two to three hours until firm. Even easier, use a can of ready-to-bake rolls from the fridge, says Lisa Kothari, a party planner and author of Dear Peppers and Pollywogs ... What Parents Want To Know About Planning Their Kids' Parties (Peppers and Pollywogs, 2007).

9. Have a scavenger hunt. Sue Johnson, coauthor of Grandloving: Making Memories With Your Grandchildren (Heartstrings, 2007), suggests looking around the house for objects in different categories, such as something squishy or something green. Or hide wrapped candies for a treasure hunt, says Kothari.

10. Have a spa day at home with your granddaughters. Kothari says bring out all your nail polishes and give one another manicures and pedicures.

11. Cook happy-face pancakes together. Have the kids use blueberries or raisins for eyes, melon for mouths, and bananas for hats, says Johnson.

12. Let the kids make outrageous cookie creations. Start with a plain cookie dough and help the little ones mix in condiments and decorations found in your cupboards, says Kothari. Some of the cookies may not taste great, but that is all part of the fun. You may discover a future chef in your family.

13. Make a time capsule. Use any old plastic container with a lid. Put in a copy of the day’s front page and notes or drawings from the kids. Bury it and dig it up together for their next birthday or school graduation.

14. Introduce your grandchildren to old-school games. Find a piece of chalk and teach them hopscotch or use cocktail stirrers and show them how to play pickup sticks.

15. Entertain younger kids by blowing bubbles yourself. Mix one cup of water, two tablespoons of glycerin, and 4 tablespoons of dishwashing liquid for hours of playtime fun. Use a drinking straw as a blower, or twist a paper clip into a loop or even loop some florist wire into a hoop.

16. Make memory movies, says Johnson. Let the kids use a video camera to interview you and other members of the older generation about your lives. Turn the camera around and let them tell you stories about their often funny lives.

17. Create a superhero. Use paper, pencils, crayons, and markers to help kids make their own comic books.

18. Have make-your-own story time. Start a story and pass it on to one of the grandchildren to continue. That grandchild passes it on to someone else and so on. You never know where the stories will go.

19. Decorate pickle and mason jars. Make designs out of scraps of colored tissue paper to decorate the jars. The transparency of the tissue paper makes a nice effect. Paint on your creations with white glue to finish off this crafty keepsake