Swing

This swing has been the yard-hit of the summer! The way it is set up, the kids can climb on one of three things, grab the swing and jump off. This is in no way safe, as most of these things are unstable, the swing is unstable and there are trees well within head-bonking distance (one of the trees now has padding around it as the mama was getting nervous). However, we have not had serious injury yet (fingers crossed!) and the kids love it! Mr. T went from being afraid to touch it, to swinging with style and ease as you can see below.

As a mother, it's hard for me to let my kids do things that look dangerous like this and that in all reality probably are. But we have made it almost six years without serious injury (again - fingers crossed!). Most importantly, I remember how FUN it was as a kid to climb on rickety things and jump off things and swing through the air. There aren't many grown-up activities that allow that and in terms of the kids learning to trust themselves, trust their bodies, try something that might be scary, etc.. I have chosen to err on the side of letting them do things that a lot of parenting books might not consider "safe".  And look at Mr. T's expression! When he figured out how to jump off the slide and fly through the air, my boy felt brave and proud and strong and that is pretty much all the justification I need.