Life has many risks. Some risks can be recovered from, and others are life long damage. It’s the latter, catastrophic risks that parents should be curating the

Life has many risks. Some risks can be recovered from, and others are life long damage. It’s the latter, catastrophic risks that parents should be curating the environment from. Kids learn from failure. It’s letting them fail and learn that grows strong adults. Some risks can be mitigated. Learning to tumble and take a fall, for example, mitigates risks of falling well into the elderly years. And as for 5 or 7 year old, yes. Or flip to the other side— traditional society, including indigenous societies, start training their toddlers on chores. Toddlers already want to help, and these are often behaviors they are already doing, like pulling clothes from laundry baskets. Five year old and seven year olds are capable. In Japan, two year olds are sent on errands. And, I have heard at least one story of an American family where the mother had her 7 and 8 year old kid take over meal planning and prep for dinner, and paying the bills. (She didn’t just throw them into the deep end either).