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What We are Reading: 2012 Edition

Memorial Day weekend conjures up vision of a beach, a lounge chair and  a slew of summer reading opportunities. As the Executive Director of Adventure Treks, one of my many jobs is to stay in touch with trends affecting teenagers, the environment, education and the outdoor industry. Though none of these books would qualify as “Beach Reads,” I’d like to share some of the more interesting books I have read this year, so you can see what is affecting our thinking as we prepare for  instructor orientation. You can see last year’s recommendations here.

In Homesick and Happy, renowned child psychologist Michael Thompson, PhD, shares a strong argument for, and a vital guide on how to raise an independent child.  A great champion of summer camp, Thompson explains how camp ushers children into a thrilling world offering an environment that most of us at home cannot: an electronics-free zone, a multi-generational community, meaningful daily rituals and a place where time simply slows down. Through outdoor adventures, children have emotionally significant and character-building experiences; and often grow in ways that surprise even themselves. I had the chance to spend meet with  Dr. Thompson this winter and it’s gratifying that he is a huge believer in the work we do at Adventure Treks

Every year we buy each of our trip leaders  a book on Leadership to frame our discussion during our four-day trip leader retreat which precedes our staff orientation. True North presents a concrete and comprehensive program for Leadership success. True North offers interviews with 125 of today’s top leaders along with a comprehensive plan to help young leaders follow their internal compass and become authentic leaders. I have read dozens of books on leadership over the years and this is one of the better ones.

 

Generation iY: Our last Chance to Save Their Future. This is a fascinating book and a call to action about some of the general characteristics of the current generation and the potential train wreck they may be headed for.  Generation iY: documents how self-esteem parenting, the digital ghetto, and a sugar coated world view may be harming our children. Unlike many books of this sort, Dr Elmore offers some practical solutions in what is an engaging and practical though sometimes disturbing read. Definitely worth reading if you want to make sure your child doesn’t return from college to make a permanent home in your basement!

 
Hamlet’s Blackberry by William Powers draws on some of history’s most brilliant thinkers, from Plato to Shakespeare to Thoreau, to demonstrate that digital connectedness serves us best when it’s balanced by its opposite, disconnectedness.  Time spent outside in nature is of course the ultimate disconnect! Power’s examines other times in history when we have gone through periods of dramatic changes in communication and translates these lessons from the past into life in our current digital world.

 

We love Wendy Mogel! The Blessing of a B- is a follow up to her wonderful The Blessing of a Skinned Knee and focuses on the challenges of parenting adolescents.  During the teenage years, a child’s sense of entitlement and independence grows, the pressure to compete skyrockets, and communication becomes fraught with obstacles. Mogel emphasizes empathy and guidance over micromanaging teens’ lives and overreacting to missteps.  She reveals that emotional outbursts, rudeness, rule-breaking, staying up late, and other worrisome teen behaviors are in fact normal and necessary steps in psychological growth and character development to be met with thoughtful care, not worry.  She brilliantly translates ancient Jewish teachings into modern parenting techniques. This is a reassuring and thoughtful read for any parent of young teenagers or tween.

 

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  OK – we aren’t using many of the themes from this trilogy in instructor orientation but it would be pretty hard to relate to today’s kids without knowing all about the Hunger Games! The fact that parts of the movie were filmed just 15 minutes from our office makes it easy to be big fans! Are you on Team Peeta or Team Gale?

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Adventure Treks as an Antidote

For the past 19 years, I have enthusiastically endorsed Adventure Treks as a great growth experience for teenagers.   Every year I become more passionate about the benefits.

At times, I wondered if I might be overstating our case.

I am now convinced that I have been understating both the power and the importance of the Adventure Treks experience.  Why?  Because of technology.

This initially may not make sense.  How does attending an outdoor program devoid of technology help a child succeed in a world defined by it?

Our basic theory is the following:
1.    Technology has transformed the world we live in: markets are global, workplaces are constantly evolving and technology itself is perpetually changing.
2.    This new world requires a certain set of skills in order to succeed in it.
3.    Ironically, immersion in technology is impeding the development of the very skills needed for success.

Let’s begin with the skills needed for success.  This 2012 Millennial Branding and Experience Survey of 225 companies shows the skills most in demand by employers:


This data dovetails nicely with data from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills which has surveyed over 2000 organizations and come up with this list  of the top five most important skills for 21st Century success.

1.    Oral communication
2.    Collaboration / teamwork
3.    Work ethic/self-discipline
4.    Written communication
5.    Critical thinking/problem solving

Communication and collaboration are interpersonal skills and top both lists.  Children develop these skills the same way they develop athletic or academic skills – through practice.  Learning to persuade another person or how to organize a group of people happens through experimentation and repetition, just like a good tennis forehand or playing a Mozart piano sonata.

Interpersonal skills are developed face-to-face, not on Facebook, not by playing video games and not by texting.

It is scary because our teens are becoming addicted to technology and social media.  Consider these two facts:
•    Research by the Kaiser Family Foundation, finds that the average American teen spend 53 hours per week interacting with an electronic screen.  Where does this time come from?  Kids are generally studying as much as our generation did and playing the same amount of organized sports.  However, they are interacting with peers less and free playing outside much less.  Simply put, the vast majority of these “technology”  hours are taken from the time kids used to “practice” interpersonal skills, playing with friends outdoors.
•    Pew Research and the Neilson Company discovered that the average teen sends 3,339 text per month and spends 95 minutes a day texting.

If, as our two research studies convincingly argue, interpersonal skills are the key to success in the modern workplace, then these trends are deeply disturbing.    At a time in history when our children should be strengthening their communication, collaboration and leadership skills (another skill in huge deficit), they are instead turning to their phones, I-pads, and computers.

In short, time spent immersed in technology is depriving our kids of the very skills needed to succeed in a technological world.

We believe the Adventure Treks experience is almost the perfect environment to combat this technology-driven communication breakdown.  In his new book “Homesick and Happy”, New York Times bestselling author Michael Thompson notes that campers send no texts, play no video games and watch no TV. “In the space created [by the absence of technology], flows a bunch of old-fashioned human behaviors: eye-to-eye contact, physical affection, spontaneous running and jumping or simple wandering”.  Oddly, these are the activities that cultivate the skills children need in a wired world. Adventure Treks is about connection, community, and communication.  We collaborate and address challenges creatively.

Adventure Treks is the only experience we are aware of where teens will gladly give up their phones for days or even a month at a time and still enjoy themselves.  In fact, we frequently hear from teenagers that they welcome a holiday from the demands of social media. When they return home, they will pick up their phones again, but we see three important differences in our Adventure Treks students compared to other teens.  First, they tend to use electronics less.  They have lived life separated from the electronic umbilical cord and loved it.  Second, they know they can be spectacular without these devices.  They have something big in their life called Adventure Treks that remains a reference point of fun and friends. Finally, they have become more effective communicators, better friends and more skilled leaders than their peers who stayed home.  Every year, we hear a litany of campers saying that “I am not sure what happened, but I found that I was the captain/drum major/leader” of my organization. They go on to attend great colleges. College placement for Adventure Treks students often exceeds that of the most elite college prep schools.

This generation may never be as good as their grandparents at interpersonal interactions. We’ve heard recently  that this has been called the “head down” generation because they are always absorbed in a screen. Of course, they are significantly more skilled in technology than their grandparents.  Yet it is these interpersonal skills that are most important and are most in deficit.  Our children do not necessarily have to be as good as their grandparents, but if we want them to be primed for success in their relationships and careers they need to develop strong interpersonal skills.

We know of no better place than Adventure Treks where children will gladly leave electronics behind and embrace face to face communication! So while your child is rafting, hiking, climbing or just hanging out in the woods with new friends and mentors, know they are also working on the interpersonal skills that are  easier to develop at Adventure Treks than at home!

We can’t wait for Adventure Treks to open and our students to arrive!

John Dockendorf, Executive Director

This blog was written in partnership with Steve Baskin, Director of Camp Champions and National Treasurer of the American Camping Association.  Steve is our friend and partner in our Camp Pinnacle venture. He is a self proclaimed camp – geek and one of the most influential thinkers in the camping community. He is a contributor and writer  for Psychology Today.

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Adventure Treks 2012 – Forming a Community from around the World

We couldn’t be more excited about summer 2012. Last week we posted instructor biographies. This week we thought we would share the 44 states and 15 countries where our students and instructors live.  Students consistently say that one of the highlights of Adventure Treks is making great friends with students and instructors from different places.  It’s wonderful being able to share experiences and world views that may be partially shaped by the communities in which we live. It’s important to realize at an early age that people from different places may see things slightly differently than we do. It’s also nice to discover that when we share a common vision for our trip, it’s easy to all work together towards a common goal and together create a community that fosters a culture of kindness, inclusion and respect.

We are about 85% full at Adventure Treks for the summer so this list will continue to grow.  We are still hoping for a student from North Dakota or West Virginia!  Some Adventure Treks trips have been full since December, but we still have room on most introductory trips in the 12 – 14 year old range. We will work hard to a find space on the right trip for each great kid. Please do tell your friends about Adventure Treks. It’s going to be an incredible summer!

It's Going to be an Incredible Summer at Adventure Treks

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Happy Easter / Passover / Spring:

Excitement for Adventure Treks summer 2012 is building and we are so very excited to meet our new students and see our many returning students and instructors. June can’t get here soon enough! New instructor hiring is almost complete. Again this year, over 70% of last summer’s instructors will be returning. We are incredibly excited about the new members of our instructor team and we expect that this will be our best team ever. Our average age will be over 27 years old. You will learn about your specific instructors in mid – May and your trip mates in mid – June.

Though Adventure Treks is all about the people, lots of new equipment arrives at our office daily. New Deuter adjustable internal frame backpacks, new Big Agnes tents, sleeping bags, climbing gear, canoes, mountain bikes and other cool outdoor equipment will complement your summer. We need a barcode system to keep it all organized.

Niki has been working hard on trip notes finalizing all the details that will make each trip magical. The most important part of the summer is you and we can’t wait for you to finish exams and get here. Our programs are 75% full and we always appreciate it when you tell your friends about us, and like us on Facebook and Google +. We are beginning to plan an Adventure Treks 20th anniversary reunion this September at our new summer camp, Camp Pinnacle. We hope to gather Adventure Treks alumni from each of the last 20 years together for great stories and fun time outdoors.

Speaking of Camp Pinnacle, Director Ben Lea and our team are hard at work reopening Camp Pinnacle for this summer. We are restoring an 85 year old iconic North Carolina mountain camp, and protecting its scenic 126 acres from development, while creating a 21st C camp with an entirely new format. Our goal is to bring the Adventure Treks philosophy to younger children, ages 8 – 13. If we can build a love for nature, outdoor activities, community and leadership at an earlier age, we are setting children up for future success while creating a natural feeder for Adventure Treks. We thank the many A.T. families who are sending younger siblings and we will have campers coming to us from around the world and across the country. Camp Pinnacle will be staffed almost entirely by former Adventure Treks students who have completed our Leadership Summit and / or Alaska programs. They are eager to give back to young folks much of what they learned at A.T. This will be a wonderful training ground in their quest to become AT instructors! Learn more about Camp Pinnacle at CAMP PINNACLE and we would greatly appreciate it if you tell your friends about our new camp!

We hope you had a fantastic holiday weekend filled with friends, family, and time outdoors. See you soon!

Best, regards, Dock

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On the Value of Community

The Dockendorf family minivan pulled into McDonald’s for breakfast. When traveling with our four kids, we’ve learned to start early and make stops efficient. A rare visit to McDonald’s created instant enthusiasm for kids being raised by slow food parents. Inside, Neil Diamond played on the Muzak system and Sirius announced that we were listening to the All Neil Diamond Station. All Neil 24/7. While a little bit of Neil Diamond may be a good thing, I was amazed that his following was large enough to justify an entire Sirius channel. (Bruce Springsteen, I can understand!) Thinking of the “Have it your way” slogan of a McDonald’s competitor, I was reminded that we are now firmly in the personalized, “one to one” marketing world my business school professors warned me about.

Though this current generation wants to “change the world” through their volunteerism, and has many wonderful attributes, sociologists say today’s youth comprise the most self- absorbed generation in history. It’s not entirely their fault; marketers have been working them over since they were babies. They are merely representing a shift in societal attitudes. (Where the preference for “making a good living” now significantly eclipses “living a good and meaningful life” in the Beloit College freshman attitudes survey) Parenting styles have also shifted. Free time for kids to roam freely outdoors without adult supervision has almost disappeared as many kids complete hectic and rigorous activity schedules. In the current age of “competitive parenting,” too much focus on our kids may actually have negative repercussions where the unintended message from all this focus can be “it’s all about you.” Add social media and the ability to broadcast minute details of one’s life to the world and I am actually amazed that this generation is as humble as they are! It makes sense that there is now a clear trend showing that “a community mindset” and “concern for a bigger picture” that was so well modeled by the Greatest Generation is now in free-fall! (Read Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam.)

I propose Adventure Treks as an anecdote and a reality check to the “it’s all about you, world.” Here students meet people from across the country and around the world. We all eat the same thing and face the same challenges. Together through our nightly evening meetings, we work through our issues as we strive to become a community. We all listen to the same music and see the same incredible scenery. Through the shared experience, we all become stronger. We learn from each other, we remember the pleasure of face to face communication, the value of compromise and grow together as we learn to see the world from another’s perspective. When a teen realizes that she “matters” to a group of people and that working together for a common goal and shared success is even more rewarding than individual success, community becomes an important value.

In a world where kids are plugged into their own personal electronic and media world, I can’t imagine anything healthier than a summer spent in the woods living with others in a close community. Great role models are the icing on the cake! The interesting thing is how much kids crave this experience –we are innately hardwired to live in a community, and once teenagers experience the Adventure Treks community, they realize that life is much richer when one doesn’t spend quite as much time in a “me” oriented world. Our graduates say they feel a direct correlation between the community mindset sharpened at Adventure Treks and success at college.

Glad to leave 20 minutes of non-stop Neil Diamond music behind, with huge smiles on the kids’ faces, plastic food in their bellies, the family minivan continued to the Florida Panhandle for spring break.

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Nature and Electronics

A prevailing theme in American life today is that the more digitally connected we are, the better off we are “supposed” to be. We all generally accept the rush to new and better digital technology and the pace of change is so fast, there is no framework to judge if ultimately our digital world is good or bad. In fact, it’s a giant “It depends.”

I was ready to challenge every positive assumption about the digital world as I watched my children on a clear but chilly February, Sunday afternoon. All four children were engrossed with a screen. Charlie, my youngest was playing Angry Birds on his mother’s cell phone. Ava was on the family computer playing games on a Nickelodeon website; Ella was watching Zoe 101 on TiVo; and Audrey, my oldest, had hijacked my iPad and was trying to best a million points on Temple Run. The iPad is far and away the most coveted of our electronic devices and there had already been numerous iPad inspired altercations during the day. In this age of over parenting, I believe that children need opportunities to sort things out for themselves; however, constant squabbling over the iPad had stretched me to the breaking point. I was ready to throw my $500 toy in the trash!

Slipping into autocratic leadership mode, I took control of the lazy Sunday afternoon! “OK, we have 15 minutes to get ready. We are going for a hike. If you make it to the top of Big Glassy, you will get 25 minutes of iPad time when we return. (Always use rewards rather than punishments, child psychologists say.) Please wear the following items… and fill your water bottle. It’s going to be chilly—put on a hat and pack gloves in the backpack.” The groans began. “Dad, why do we always have to hike? We hate hiking. No other parents make their kids hike as much as you do.”

The lure of 25 minutes of private iPad time proved to be a great motivator and we were soon at the trailhead. Nature began her magic immediately. Conversations that had once been rancorous and competitive eased into friendly and convivial ones. My kids started playing. A downed tree on the side of the trail became an angled balance beam. A stump became a jump off spot. A frozen spring on a rock at the summit became a mini luge slide. Mindsets shifted from competition to cooperation as they helped each other over the slippery ice. Everyone enjoyed the scenic view and the sweet treats from their personal snack bag (bribery can work as a wonderful reinforcement of desired behavior.)

Everyone had earned iPad time but no one was rushing to be done with the hike. Nature had worked her magic, again. We had had some great conversations uninterrupted by digital devices. My children’s faces had rosy glows and they were getting along (mostly) with each other. “I love hiking,” my five year old said with a smile as he looked over a 40 mile view. I smiled, knowing the next time I brought it up he would tell me how much he hated hiking!

I had the privilege to meet Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods a few weeks later. Louv is advocating that time in nature should be a fundamental human right. While I think that is going to be a hard battle to fight, I know the power that nature can have on my family and its consistently transformative effect on our relationships. At Adventure Treks, when students are outside for three weeks straight, the effects are phenomenal.

Richard Louv has created the Children in Nature Network http://www.childrenandnature.org/documents/C118/and the data his group has collected about the benefits of being outside, is compelling. That chilly weekend, I didn’t care about the data. I just knew that nature works!

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On Teens and Quiet

This recent Sunday NY Times editorial, The Joy of Quiet by Pico Iyer struck a note. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&smid=fb-share The basic premise of the article is that the internet age arrived without an instruction manual. Despite the many benefits of technology, people are going to great effort and expense now to turn it off for a while. I can certainly relate. Like most American workers, I am interrupted every few minutes and have to work hard to find time in a day to actually find myself and focus! A highlight of a recent family trip to Guatemala was the opportunity to get away from my cell phone and internet for 8 whole days. I may have enjoyed this separation even more than Guatemala’s beautiful scenery.

The article points out, that after spending time in quiet rural settings, subjects “exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger memory and generally improved cognition. Their brains become both calmer and sharper.” More than that, empathy, as well as deep thought, depends on neural processes that are “inherently slow.” The very ones our high-speed lives have little time for.

This article is well supported well by another NY Times article I read last August about a group of scientists on a rafting trip trying to study how a retreat into nature might reverse the effects of digital technology on our brain. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/technology/16brain.html?pagewanted=all

Both articles subtly make a great case for a summer at Adventure Treks. No time in life is more important for finding oneself than adolescence. Yet as Adolescents spend more and more time in front of screens, handling on average over a hundred texts a day, they may be losing an opportunity to get to know or be themselves. No one knows if this decrease in reflective time may affect the people our children will become on the other end. Adventure Treks offers a valued respite from a busy, digital world. Twenty days without cell phones, TV and internet – replaced by the beauty and calm of nature – creates an opportunity for adolescents to slow down, reflect, and see themselves for the wonderful people they are. Parents frequently remark how calm, rested, assured and serene their children seem when they return from an Adventure Treks summer. (And exhausted with lots of dirty laundry!) Besides the great friends, close community, 21st century skills and role models; taking the time to slow down and find oneself away from a busy digital world is just another great reason to spend the summer at Adventure Treks!

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Happy Holidays from Adventure Treks!

The Winter Solstice seems like a great day to extend holiday greetings to you, our wonderful extended Adventure Treks family. Whatever special holiday your family celebrates this time of year, we hope it is a wonderful time to enjoy your friends and family and revel in the meaning and magic of the holiday season. Enjoy your well deserved break from school, and we hope you are able to get outside and enjoy the wonders of the outdoors in winter.

Please take time to phone your Adventure Treks friends and say hi. We all know that friends are the greatest gift one can have and the most important part of the holiday season. You were part of a special group of friends this summer and please make the effort to keep these bonds strong. I know several Adventure Treks reunions large and small that are taking place over Christmas break.

2012 will bring the start of a new Adventure Treks season and we are working hard to make 2012 your best summer ever. Two trips, (California Challenge 2 and British Columbia 2) are already full, and several others are nearly full, so please apply soon. We don’t want to disappoint anybody!

Our office will be closed Between December 23 and January 1, reopening on Monday, January 2nd. We will be checking emails and voice mails but not as promptly as the rest of the year.

A lot has happened since you left us and your AT instructors are currently spread out around the globe, but we can’t wait to all come together and join you next summer! Niki and Dmac have just returned from Everest Base camp in Nepal. The Dockendorf family is back from Lake Attilan in Guatemala. Holly went skiing at Lake Tahoe, Sandy has been canoeing in the Everglades, Valerie just rafted the Grand Canyon. Dave Pete got married. Daniel B. and Andy B. are teaching skiing in Jackson Hole. Sam, John G and Ali Q are headed to New Zealand, Callie and Kenny are in Ecuador, Liz D. is teaching skiing in Steamboat, and KKR is working for an NGO in Africa. Amanda earned straight A’s in graduate school. Chrissie is working on her doctorate at UVA, Tracy has started graduate school in CO, Liddell and Kara began in Western NC and are sea kayaking the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers all the way to the Gulf of Mexico…over 1864 miles! Max is in Law School. Kelley is working for Outward Bound in FL, Neil will soon be climbing in Argentina and Chile. Elspie and Amber are teaching at the Yosemite Institute. Cait is traveling to Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand, Jessie is teaching Montessori. Craig is teaching 6th grade science in Atlanta. Erica is skiing in Montana. Sara R. is teaching English in China, Flynn, Brandon and Lauren are ski patrolling at Mammoth. Tessa, Chris, Cedric and Carter are ski patrolling at Park City. Kai is guiding in the Virgin Islands. Rayna is running a non profit. Allegra is teaching for the Traveling School in Central America after a trip to the Galapagos. Ben is presenting his research on Adventure Treks at educational conferences around the country. Mike P is coming to work full time at Adventure Treks! Marcus has become a stockbroker.

Thank you for being part of our family this holiday.

Our very best,
Dock, Niki, Dmac, Holly, Sandy, Cait and your Adventure Treks Instructors

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Adventure Treks on College and Reunions

It’s been a big week for early enrollment decisions for some of our Adventure Treks Alaska and Leadership Summit students. Huge Congratulations to Anna Gabianelli and Ali Hamlin for getting in to Dartmouth, Michael Moorin for getting in to Princeton, Ariana Lutterman for Yale and Josh Silver for Brown. We can’t wait to hear where others of you are going. Please let us know, we can put you in touch with AT students already attending your new school!

Not everyone is as fortunate to land at their first choice of school as these students did. If you didn’t, please know that sometimes in the big picture that can be a good thing, too. You just may not feel that right now, but you will probably feel great about the school you end up attending at a later date.

We know that the confidence, resilience, love of community, tolerance for uncertainty and independence strengthened at Adventure Treks will be part of the toolbox that will insure these great students’ success at college. Here is a link to an article by my friend and business partner Steve Baskin, a camp director who blogs for Psychology Today on how summer camp gives kids an advantage in college.

www.psychologytoday.com/blog/smores-and-more/201112/creating-advantage-in-college

Fourteen of our Alaska students attended a reunion in Pennsylvania last weekend and Several Cascades Challenge students will be getting together next week in NC near my home. I am excited to get to see them and hope they can come over for dinner! I am so thrilled that friendships made at Adventure Treks are thriving beyond Adventure Treks and are important enough for people to work hard to spend holidays with each other. These relationships are what Adventure Treks is all about and i know many more of you will find time to visit Adventure Treks friends. One group of former AT instructors, now in their late thirties and with children, have gotten together every New Years Eve for the past 11 years!

All 2011 students should be received something from us soon. We are proud of our new 2011 brochure. It will be landing in your mailboxes in early January. Enjoy the run up to the holidays.

Best, Dock

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To over protect or to under protect- that is the question

My nine year old daughter squealed with delight as the wind whipped through her hair. We were probably going about 35 miles an hour down a steep downhill. Her eight year old sister, the quieter of the two, looked up with a similar sense of glee. We weren’t on a roller coaster or a mountain bike; my kids were standing up in the back of a pick- up truck! Before you cast aspersions at my irresponsible parenting, know that we were riding on public transportation, or what passes for public transportation in Guatemala. My six person family shared the back of the pick-up with 16 others and my kids were actually in the safer positions. The vehicle was so overcrowded that people were hanging off both the back and sides. This was the only alternative to walking the nine miles to town and at 65 cents per person the price was fair. Cheap compared to the fifty dollars it would cost to ride Harry Potter at Disney! From my kid’s perspective, they now wish the crowded pick-up could replace the family mini-van as their daily transportation to school!

Traveling in Guatemala as a family was the eye opening experience that we had intended for our kids. We called it a field trip, not a vacation. For them to be approached by even younger children selling trinkets in the streets in order to put food on the family table was entry into a world far different from theirs. They were surprised to see seven year olds working, carrying 30 pound bundles of firewood on their backs along the side of the road; or five year olds with their own shoe-shine business.

I certainly came home with the conclusion that my kids were even more overprotected than I had thought. A recent Wall Street Journal article written by Lorene Skenazy, founder of Free Range Kids asks “If age ten in America is now the new two?” Compared to life in a Guatemalan village, it certainly is. To go from a world where simple balloons carry warnings that they should only be used under parent supervision for those under the age of 14 to a world where five year olds roam freely, obliviously ignorant of the US State Department warnings about every possible threat from carjacking to kidnapping to imminent earthquake, was eye opening.

Can our kids live a full life in a bubble wrapped world? Parenting in the 21st century is more challenging than it’s ever been. Consequences from a single misstep can have a lifetime of consequences and the media insures that we hear about every potential misstep every second of every day. But what do our kids miss when we remove all risk from the equation? For all of us parents, who keep the safety of our kids first and foremost, it’s a giant balancing act. How do we as parents give our kids experiences, teach them to assess risk, and to discern between reasonable and unreasonable risk? How do we train them to make good decisions as they navigate an increasingly challenging, difficult and competitive world?

I wish I had all the answers; hopefully a summer at Adventure Treks helps… it gives a teenager independence, challenge, the ability to try some “risky” activities and the opportunity to learn to assess risk, but with a great role model looking over their shoulders and adding both input and veto power.

Letting go in a scary world can be tough; giving our kids the tools to make sound decisions is our only defense. There are consequences to both over parenting and under parenting. Parenting is quite a ride, isn’t it?

Best, Dock

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