I shudder to think of my kids doing the stuff I did as a kid, and sometimes wonder what angel was looking over me that I made it to adulthood.

I don’t worry at all about my 8yo boy however, as he’s very cautious and risk averse. My 6yo girl though already scares me to death with the stuff she does when she slips out of sight. I can’t wait for the teenage years! <sarcasm>

When I was a 6 years old girl I found a rusty machete in a forest I was not supposed to be in. I managed to find my way back to the group of adults frantically looking for me in the parking lot nearby, realized they were looking for me, and decided I did not want to get angry/panicked adults all over me. So I discreetely went back in the forest to build stuff with my new machete. Adults soon found me running down a forest hill full of dead wood and poison ivy; while holding a rusty machete. I panicked when my mom yelled at me so I tried to escape by JUMPING down the slope with the machete in my hand, before deciding to keep running away through the creek that cushioned my fall - because now that I was covered in mud and water I figured they would kill me.

During all of this ordeal, I thought the issue was that I went in the forest and got dirty. The "disappeared for a long time" and the "holding and using a rusty machete" did not register as issues.

Goold luck with your daughter, it did not become better for my parents until I was...Until they stopped knowing what I did. And just as you they were unprepared because my older brother is mostly into being alive and safe.