Mountain

An important rule of travel, according to the longtime Lonely Planet editor Don George, is this: if you don't pack your sense of humour with your sunscreen, sooner or later you'll get burned.

Put most simply, anything unexpected can happen in your journey. That's just the way of the road. If you want to help yourself - and perhaps more importantly your children - seek the fun and not-so-funny encounters on the road, you should remember your metaphorical protective screen.

We have the recent opportunity to bring our daughter to Norway, an outdoorsy country. One of our adventures was riding mountain bikes at the top of Mount Fløyen. Whew! That's quite a daunting task for us, the first-timers.

I reminded myself, after my recent reading of The Yes Brain Child, we're supposed to neither bubble-wrap our children nor minimize their feelings. The sweet spot or Goldilocks balance might not be easy to find, but my bottom line is that it's impossible to "spoil" my daughter by giving her lots of love. I wanted her to assert herself and face the challenge of the bumpy (half gravel, half paved) mountain track, and then discover how strong and capable she really is. My job and that of my wife, however, remained to walk with her through the difficult moments. The truth was, we literally walked when she thought she could not handle the slope. With time, she was hopping back on the hard-tailed bike with more courage and composure, and finished the trail with an "I did it!"