A man is driving three anxious children in a minivan. The children are blindfolded.
“People are gonna get me,” sobs 8-year-old Tilly Jane. Her siblings Eleanor, 11, and Ivan, 6, assure her it’ll be alright.
“This is why we’re doing this,” says their father. “Because it’s hard and a little scary. But once you figure it out, you’ll be fine. Okay?”
One by one, their dad drops them off at random locations in their neighborhood. Their assignment is to find their way home.
Christian Knight has shown his kids how to use a map of the neighborhood that he made specifically for this exercise. He also explained to them basic principles of getting themselves oriented and staying safe in public.
But this is still hard.
It’s still scary.
“While talking with my kids about some places we frequently go, I realized they lacked a sense of where things were,” Knight says. “If somehow they got lost, they would likely panic. And since I couldn’t guarantee they’d never get lost, I figured the best thing I could do was prepare them for the feeling of being lost.”
Knight’s wife expressed skepticism. “How are you going to keep them from actually getting lost?” she asked.
Each of the children had a walkie talkie set to the same channel. And their dad dropped them off within a couple blocks of their elementary school. “All they’d have to do is find their school,” Knight says, “and then they’d easily find their way home.”
Dealing with fear
“What I really wanted for them was to create that initial sense of being lost. It can be a scary feeling. Terrifying, really. I wanted them to work past the fear and get into problem solving: ‘I don’t know where I am. What do I do? I see a street sign. The sign says ‘123rd Place Northeast.’ I know the avenues get bigger as they go east. East is where the sun comes up in the morning. East is where my house is. I’m going east.’ That was the goal.”
Learning how to deal with fear is a regular part of life for this family, as they are all avid whitewater kayakers. “Fear isn’t the only variable we use to decide whether to go for it or not,” Knight says. “Understanding the consequences of a mistake and knowing whether you can deal with those consequences are the two questions we ask ourselves any time we scout a rapid.” (Knight made another video, “Why We Teach You,” about immersing his kids in kayaking and the outdoors “as an antidote to the confines of everyday life.”)
Knight says he has adopted many philosophies from whitewater kayaking to raise his children. And he wants to push back against influences that cause children to fear their surroundings and their neighbors. “Everywhere they look, it’s scary. I believe we let fear control too much of what we do, and who we talk to, and what goals we pursue. I want my children to see the world as a palette of possibilities.”
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