Other then telling him to be more careful, we never did take the step of taking away his bike or forbidding him to ride his bike again out of our supervision. Though that might have been the reaction of many other parents. He must have learned his limits though because he never got into another bicycle accident again.
You are right about young kids doing dumb things. Unfortunately, we cannot be with them every minute of every day to protect them unless we want to completely isolate them from the outside world. And that's not a healthy way to raise a child.
I think back to when I was a kid. My mother would take me shopping and I'd much rather sit in the car and read a library book or even just listen to the car radio than to go inside of a store. I was in Little League then and I remember walking to practice and then walking back home afterwards. I don't think either of my parents ever came to a single Little League practice and I played Little League ball for years. Maybe one of them showed up for a game here and there but that was a rarity. That was not unusual by the way. In those days, most parents did not involve themselves in every second of their child's play.
When I put my own kids in Little League, every single kid had at least one parent sitting in a lawn chair - and that was for PRACTICE! God forbid you should actually miss an actual game. And once that game was over, you have 50 cars trying to leave the parking lot at the same time.
Don't get me going on bus stops! When I was growing up, I walked to school or I walked to the bus stop. Now maybe when I was in first grade, my mother walked me to the bus stop. But that was it.
These days, not only are parents at the bus stop for their HIGH SCHOOL children, but they actually drive their kids to the bus stop even if it's just a block away. I've literally seen it happen. A garage door will open and a minivan will back out and drive two houses down where it will idle until the bus arrives. Then you will see a fully grown 16-year-old kid step out of the vehicle and walk 15 steps to the bus while his mother waves and blows kisses the whole way.
This is just way too much "helicopter" parenting for me.
No wonder so many adult children never leave the nest.
You grew up like me. Recently, I returned to my childhood neighborhood and was shocked to see school guards minding the streets around...the high school! My generation would have scorned that. A 17 year old can’t cross the street without a 90 year old crossing guard?