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Tito Traversa Killed in a Fall 22-May-2018 At 5:31:43 PM Estey

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On 22-May-2018 One Day Hero wrote:

>
>This brings up another couple of points for my parental responsibility
>rant.
>1) So, what do you reckon the long term health outcomes will be for the current
>generation of kids who are starting at age 5 and will no doubt go on to
>9a and 9b?

This ones an important issue. Thanks for raising it. I'm happy for my child to pull plastic once or twice a week as long as there are sufficient rest days and they are doing other forms of physical activity. Campus boards should be in the same category as alcohol ... not for kids and not necessarily healthy for adults either. In terms of long term degeneration of joints I think moderate climbing loads is way better than competitive gymnastics or playing footy.
>
>2) Estey's point about teaching kids to manage risks. I reckon this can
>go the wrong way. You expose kids to risk so often that they become ice
>cold hardnuts, and then dial the risk way up beyond long term survivability
>as a result.

I think it depends on how you teach it. I'm aiming to steer my guys away from mountaineering, poorly protected trad routes and speed climbing big walls. I'm hoping they learn to leave their egos behind early on and focus on doing fun stuff in beautiful places with cool people. This doesn't necessarily have to be in climbing, I'd be just as happy if they found this skiing, on a mtb or surfing.

I suspect a lot of the guys and girls pushing the limits in boldness and speed are biologically programmed to "feed the rat". I also reckon there is a bit of hero worship in this space, particularly in the American climbing media. Part of your role as a parent introducing your child to climbing should be to help them get a bit of perspective on this. That is, why people do really high risk stuff and why you don't have to do it.