July 26, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
04:02
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Okay, so in general, you know, there's lots of different ways to do it, and each child is different. | |
| What I have found helpful is not to give them answers, but to teach them the questions to ask, right? | |
| Which is, I want to ride my bike without a helmet, right? | |
| Now you got to put your helmet on, you know. | |
| Now, you take an egg and you smash it against the wall. | |
| So, no, but you say, okay, so how nice is it to ride without the helmet? | |
| You know, like one to 10, 10 being, you know, a candy mosh pit at Disneyland and one being, I don't know, one of dad's long stories, right? | |
| So, and they'd say, oh, it's a three, right? | |
| And I say, okay, well, how bad is it if you fall and, you know, really crack your head? | |
| Because, you know, you're learning how to ride the bike and, you know, whatever. | |
| It's easy, right? | |
| You just, you hit one rock, you skid, there's gravel, could be any number of things, right? | |
| You'd go up the curb at the wrong angle, down you go, right? | |
| So how bad is it to crack your head versus how good is it to feel the wind in your hair? | |
| Which, you know, if memory serves and it's been a while, was pretty nice, right? | |
| So you ask them those questions and just get them to do that cost-benefit analysis. | |
| Now, again, that's not perfect, right? | |
| Because it's only when they're younger, you just, you know, you put the helmet on. | |
| We have to wear a helmet. | |
| Why? | |
| Because I don't want you to get injured, blah, blah, blah. | |
| Right. | |
| But they have to start balancing risk when they get older and telling kids, you know, what are the pluses and what are the minuses. | |
| And I mean, I've had to do these calculations as I'm sort of rounding the home stretch to 60, which is there are things that I would like, my daughter jumps off a big wall, right? | |
| And I'm like, that would be fun. | |
| Unless it hurts my knee, my ankle, my hip, or my back, in which case, I could be laid up for a long time. | |
| So I have to do these cost. | |
| And it's different. | |
| When I was younger, I didn't even think twice. | |
| I do what she did, just jump off the wall, right? | |
| And I'm like, it could be fine, but I do this cost benefit analysis. | |
| And these days, I generally don't. | |
| I mean, there's stuff I will do. | |
| I'll go, you know, paddleboarding and I'll go swimming and all of that. | |
| And I'll do some, I go rock climbing still from time to time. | |
| So, but that's all relatively safe, right? | |
| But when it comes to just like the other day, my daughter and I were out and there was a at a school, there was a running long jump, right? | |
| My daughter is like a complete toad grasshopper when it comes to the long jump. | |
| It's, it's crazy. | |
| Like she basically sprouts wings. | |
| She's a Pegasus. | |
| And she does a great jump and she's like, dad, you should do it. | |
| And listen, a couple of years ago, I did it. | |
| I just sprinted and jumped. | |
| But now I'm like, okay, the sprinting I can do. | |
| I know I can still sprint. | |
| But if I jump and I land and something happens to my knee, because this happened to me years ago, it took like eight months to get better. | |
| And it's just cost-benefit. | |
| What's the benefit is like, wow, it'd be cool if I did that. | |
| That's fun. | |
| But the downside is pretty significant, right? | |
| So getting kids to do the cost-benefit analysis is really important. | |
| And rather than saying, well, you probably shouldn't do it because of X, Y, and Z, say, okay, let's talk about it, right? | |
| What's the plus? | |
| What's the minus? | |
| What's the good? | |
| What's the bad? | |
| And so on. | |
| And getting them to do that cost-benefit analysis, because that cost-benefit analysis is going to be really important when they hit that drinking drugs and sex peer pressure in their teens, right? | |
| Because they're going to have to do, you know, you can say don't do it. | |
| And of course, that's the right to avoid it. | |
| But they're still going to have to do a cost-benefit analysis, which is, okay, so if I have a drink, then I'm not going to be looked at as weird by my friends. | |
| And, you know, that look, you know, nerd, whatever it is. | |
| I mean, that means a lot to teenagers. | |
| I'm not so old that I can't remember that kind of stuff. | |
| But they have to do a cost-benefit, as opposed to, you know, someone who's like, hey, take this unmarked pill at a party. | |
| And it's like, okay, that's definitely a bad idea. |
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