I recently taught my grandson, Jack, how to hammer a nail and how to use a hatchet. He’s 6 and, I think, plenty ready to learn how to use simple tools.

I just watched this TED talk and now I’m thinking that we could do more! Yay, Gever Tulley!

There’s also this article from The Atlantic, goes right along with the idea that kids can do more than we gave them credit for. In fact, I suspect that there are many of us who did a lot of things when we were kids that we never let our own children do. Maybe that’s why I think Jack might need a drill for Christmas this year, and a small hand saw…

PS: For those of you who are wondering why Jack got to work with these tools and not his older sister, Elanor, it isn’t so much sexism on my part as it is that whammering and whacking seem to fit Jack’s personality better right now. So, Elanor, if you are reading this and want to work with tools too, just say so :-).