Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - Teaching Your Children How to Manage Risk...
Aired: 2025-07-26
Duration: 04:02


=== Teaching Questions Not Answers (03:33) ===

[00:00:00]  Okay, so in general, you know, there's lots of different ways to do it, and each child is different.
[00:00:06]  What I have found helpful is not to give them answers, but to teach them the questions to ask, right?
[00:00:11]  Which is, I want to ride my bike without a helmet, right?
[00:00:17]  Now you got to put your helmet on, you know.
[00:00:20]  Now, you take an egg and you smash it against the wall.
[00:00:24]  So, no, but you say, okay, so how nice is it to ride without the helmet?
[00:00:29]  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?
[00:00:39]  So, and they'd say, oh, it's a three, right?
[00:00:41]  And I say, okay, well, how bad is it if you fall and, you know, really crack your head?
[00:00:46]  Because, you know, you're learning how to ride the bike and, you know, whatever.
[00:00:49]  It's easy, right?
[00:00:50]  You just, you hit one rock, you skid, there's gravel, could be any number of things, right?
[00:00:55]  You'd go up the curb at the wrong angle, down you go, right?
[00:00:58]  So how bad is it to crack your head versus how good is it to feel the wind in your hair?
[00:01:03]  Which, you know, if memory serves and it's been a while, was pretty nice, right?
[00:01:07]  So you ask them those questions and just get them to do that cost-benefit analysis.
[00:01:13]  Now, again, that's not perfect, right?
[00:01:15]  Because it's only when they're younger, you just, you know, you put the helmet on.
[00:01:18]  We have to wear a helmet.
[00:01:19]  Why?
[00:01:19]  Because I don't want you to get injured, blah, blah, blah.
[00:01:21]  Right.
[00:01:21]  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.
[00:01:28]  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?
[00:01:39]  And I'm like, that would be fun.
[00:01:42]  Unless it hurts my knee, my ankle, my hip, or my back, in which case, I could be laid up for a long time.
[00:01:50]  So I have to do these cost.
[00:01:52]  And it's different.
[00:01:52]  When I was younger, I didn't even think twice.
[00:01:54]  I do what she did, just jump off the wall, right?
[00:01:56]  And I'm like, it could be fine, but I do this cost benefit analysis.
[00:02:00]  And these days, I generally don't.
[00:02:03]  I mean, there's stuff I will do.
[00:02:05]  I'll go, you know, paddleboarding and I'll go swimming and all of that.
[00:02:10]  And I'll do some, I go rock climbing still from time to time.
[00:02:14]  So, but that's all relatively safe, right?
[00:02:16]  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?
[00:02:26]  My daughter is like a complete toad grasshopper when it comes to the long jump.
[00:02:31]  It's, it's crazy.
[00:02:32]  Like she basically sprouts wings.
[00:02:33]  She's a Pegasus.
[00:02:35]  And she does a great jump and she's like, dad, you should do it.
[00:02:39]  And listen, a couple of years ago, I did it.
[00:02:40]  I just sprinted and jumped.
[00:02:41]  But now I'm like, okay, the sprinting I can do.
[00:02:44]  I know I can still sprint.
[00:02:46]  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.
[00:02:54]  And it's just cost-benefit.
[00:02:56]  What's the benefit is like, wow, it'd be cool if I did that.
[00:02:59]  That's fun.
[00:03:00]  But the downside is pretty significant, right?
[00:03:02]  So getting kids to do the cost-benefit analysis is really important.
[00:03:09]  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?
[00:03:14]  What's the plus?
[00:03:15]  What's the minus?
[00:03:16]  What's the good?
[00:03:16]  What's the bad?
[00:03:17]  And so on.
[00:03:18]  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?
[00:03:29]  Because they're going to have to do, you know, you can say don't do it.
[00:03:31]  And of course, that's the right to avoid it.

=== Cost-Benefit Analysis Matters (00:28) ===

[00:03:34]  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.
[00:03:45]  And, you know, that look, you know, nerd, whatever it is.
[00:03:48]  I mean, that means a lot to teenagers.
[00:03:49]  I'm not so old that I can't remember that kind of stuff.
[00:03:52]  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.
[00:03:59]  And it's like, okay, that's definitely a bad idea.