Colorchallenge Thursday - Green

I was never big on slides growing up because I always liked to retain some control over my body, I realized early on that when you start that downhill slide you are committed, and even though there are things that you can sometimes do to slow your decent, you still know that it is almost impossible to stop until you’ve reached the bottom.

Now I’m no coward and I’m not opposed to a little thrill seeking as long as some common sense is involved. But as far back as I can remember I have always been the kind of person that looks ahead to the potential for danger and injury and weighed the risks against what I was going to get in return. A child’s slide seems like a small thing to an adult, but to a little kid it can be a big deal. What if there is a break or a tear somewhere that creates a sharp protruding edge? What if someone gets in the way or places an object at the end of the slide for you to crash into? What if? What if? What if? I was constantly thinking about the what if’s.

This kind of thinking made me cautious, so what, I loved my body and I wanted to preserve it intact. After I grew up it made it easy for me to follow the safety rules on a job site. I wore hearing protection around loud machinery and on the firing ranges, so I still have good hearing while others my age are starting to get hearing aides. I wore eye protection, which saved me from having an eye injury on multiple occasions. I was just naturally safety minded all of my life.

This is why I think that it is important that children start learning common sense good safety practices at a very early age. Establishing simple safety checks and ingraining in a child’s mind the need to curb impulsiveness and learn to take a moment to think ahead to the possible results of an action could save a lot of heartache and grief throughout their lives.

I have been in charge of youth programs for several different organizations and I really enjoy being around young people, it makes me feel young again. But it pains me to see kids that seem to at times be out of control of their own body. They leap before they look! They will take a dare without hesitation! They will try a stunt no matter how impossible it sounds! I know when I see these type actions that those children are headed for a life of unnecessary pain and that they are likely to start head first on a broken downhill slide full of sharp obstacles and danger one day. These are dangerous life slides they may not be able to get off of until they reach the very bottom.

In the world today it is not hard to look out there and find young people that are on that downhill slide to the bottom. Drug and alcohol abuse, pornography and sex, thrill seeking, debt accumulation and many other downhill slides are right there in front of them just daring them to get on and give it a try. At the top they look so fun and inviting, they may see their peers giving it a try so why not? What they don’t see is the pile of mangled lives at the bottom of those slides.

As adults we should have learned by now to do a circle safety walk around our vehicle before we get in to drive. We should be practicing proper firearm safety before we mess with a gun. We probably insure that we have firefighting equipment available and a clear area before we build a fire outdoors. These are basic good safety practices that we have learned as adults and that we should follow out of habit. But shouldn’t we start teaching good safety practices to our kids right from the beginning? Shouldn’t we start showing them the results of an impulsive and uncontrolled life as soon as they begin to be subject to the temptations that can lead to a life wrecking downhill slide? And shouldn’t we remember when we see such wrecked lives that it could easily have been us that started down that slide and could find no way to stop until we reached the bottom. Lets teach the young beforehand, and let’s empathize with, and reach out to help, those that succumbed to temptation and found themselves broken and bleeding at the bottom.