Climbing Trees and the Story Warren

I somehow stumbled across a great article called The Risk List by Helena Sorensen on StoryWarren.com. The contents of the article really challenged me to loosen my grip just a bit on my protective tendencies with my kids and to allow them to experience risk. In doing so, they will not only be better prepared for real life outside of our purview, but also to embrace more risk in my own life. Some of her ideas were to do things like provide kids with a real compass and allow them to learn to use it or to get them their own pocketknife (gasp) and then teach them to use it correctly. Good, challenging and practical ideas that I just hadn’t considered before.

So this weekend, I stepped back and allowed G-Man (6) and Boy Wonder (9) to climb the tree in the front yard, despite my fears of certain impending death as a result. It wasn’t their first ever tree climbing experience, but it was the first where I wasn’t constantly hovering nervously. This may not seem like a big deal to many but it’s a change of mindset for me that I am striving to grow in. We’ve also decided to ditch the “safe” trunk or treat events this year and allow them to do more “real” trick or treating for Halloween. In other words, to let them be kids. These types of changes should be empowering for them and are also an expression of our faith that our Father is watching over them. I highly encourage you to take a few minutes and check it out.

If that was all I got out of that random link click that brought me to that article, then that would be enough. However, after finishing it, I began to look around Story Warren and what I found really captivated me.

Story Warren is a really amazing site that encourages fostering imagination in our children, whether through the books that they are exposed to or through other life experiences. According to their About page, “Story Warren exists to serve you as you foster holy imagination in the children you love. We hope God will use us to Kindle Imagination for Kingdom Anticipation.” That is such a neat quote and spoke directly to my heart as a dad who strongly believes in protecting and growing imagination in my kids.

Many of the contributors are actively homeschooling their kids and thus are putting their ideas into practice daily in their homes. Check back regularly to see videos that you can share with your kids, new ideas of things to do with them and articles to help us as parents inspire and cultivate imagination in us and them.