Teaching Kids to Manage Risk (So They Can Live Bigger Lives)

Bottom Line:
Feeling comfortable in our ability to manage risk allows us and our kids to live bigger, fuller lives.

My family and I learned a lot about risk management on our recent trip to Banff National Park when we had an encounter with the local fauna.

A straightforward equation that I find useful for thinking about risk management is: Risk = Threat × Vulnerability

In this equation, most people focus on the threat. In reality, what we should all focus on is reducing our vulnerability as this is the variable over which we have some control.

Parental Fear

It seems like there's a lot of fear out there in the parenting world these days. As a group, us parents, knowingly or unknowingly, seem to be choosing to play it safe and limit the potential growth of our kids as opposed to playing loose and allowing life to teach our kids the lessons it will. Maybe a big part of that is that we don't feel comfortable managing risk, and certainly don't trust our kids—and their still evolving frontal lobes—to manage risk. But what does it even mean to manage risk? To answer that, let's start with a story and end with an equation that I hope you all take some time to consider and maybe even share with your kids one day.

A Grizzly Encounter

Day 2 of our Banff trip.

We decided to stay on Eastern Time, which means we're early to the trailheads. At 6:30 AM, with a chill in the air, we set off on the 6.5-mile Boom Lake Trail with our two boys, ages 6 and 8.

Signs warn of grizzlies. The advice is clear: hike in groups of four or more, keep bear spray ready, make noise. So we do. Our favorite family playlist plays from a small speaker, and we rotate between storytelling and a game where each person invents a made-up animal starting with the last letter of the previous one. The boys love it.

The trail is gorgeous and quiet — almost too quiet. Around every bend, I wonder: could this be where we see one?

We reach Boom Lake, nestled in the mountains, ringed with enormous boulders the boys climb like mountain goats. I jump into the icy glacial water, and we eat lunch listening to the sounds of nature's stillness and the occasional bird call. We don't see another human until we're packing up to leave. No bears.

Day 3.

We drive the Icefields Parkway to see the Athabasca Glacier and plan to hike part of Wilcox Pass. The boys surprise us — they want to go further. So we do, until the end of the trail. Another beautiful day in the mountains.  No bears.

Day 4: Lake Minnewanka.

This feels even more like bear country. Berry bushes line both sides of the trail, and for the first hour, we don't see a soul. The boys are in high spirits despite multiple days of long hikes. So we keep going and eventually head up Aylmer Pass.

At one point, we're hiking a narrow section of shale, high above the lake. Then we re-enter the woods. A small hill rises in front of us. I'm telling the story of Batman Begins as best I can recount. I reach the top first.

And there she is.

A grizzly. Maybe 35 feet away, walking down the trail — toward us.

I quietly say, "Bear," and we all stop. Calm. Silent. We slowly begin backing away, facing her the entire time. She keeps coming.

I had already popped the safety on the bear spray, and I decided to spray a burst onto the ground and in her direction.

She stops.

Looks at us.

We continue backing away. Still calm. Still facing her.

After a long pause, she turns. Walks the other direction.

Only then — once she's out of sight — do we turn and move quickly down the trail in the opposite direction.

The Lessons We Almost Missed

What an experience for all of us. We had rehearsed exactly what we would do if we encountered a bear numerous times as a family. Prior to the trip, we had our boys watch YouTube videos on the subject and then had them teach us what to do—without their knowing that we had already looked up every resource we could find. And when it counted, we executed the plan. We stayed calm. We didn't panic. It worked. Could it have gone another way? Of course. But man, the lessons we would have missed out on. The raw experience of seeing a creature of such power, the lessons learned about showing respect for nature, the thrill of feeling so small but not having to be afraid, the sense of confidence that comes from executing a plan well in a high-stakes situation.

There is less than one non-fatal grizzly bear encounter every 3 years in Banff National Park. Two backpackers were killed in Banff in 2023, but before that, it had been decades since a fatal attack. Did I know all of this going into the trip? I did. I bet some people might consider me a bad father for taking my family into bear country, but I did it knowingly and am absolutely thrilled we encountered a bear.

The Reality We Hide From

The world is dangerous. Nature has the ability to be brutal. We hide from this fact every day. In sheltering ourselves from the reality of what life is and always has been, I believe we pay a cost far worse…a sort of death by a thousand comforts. We all see this occurring around us and sometimes feel it within us.

Is the danger and brutality of life inevitable? Well, eventually we all die, and yes, there is so much that is out of our control. But! Most of what is out there is simply risk. So if you train yourself to manage risk and you trust your training, then you can allow yourself to fully engage with life and you can accept what you can't control.

The Risk Management Equation

In his book Risk: A User's Guide, General Stanley McChrystal defines risk with the following equation:

Risk = Threat × Vulnerability

This equation reflects a simple but powerful concept:

Threat is the external danger—a hazard or potential negative event.

Vulnerability is your internal susceptibility to that threat—how unprepared or exposed you are.

Most of us focus on threats. But that is exactly what we often can't control! If you want to think about a wildfire as an analogy, the spark of lightning hitting the ground is the threat whereas the dry ground is the vulnerability. Can you control the lightning? No! All we can do is control our vulnerability. And that is what risk management is all about.

In My Work as an Anesthesiologist

As an anesthesiologist, this is what I do every day. I think about how to prevent bad things from happening to the best of my ability. I think about how to be prepared for bad things if they do end up occurring. And I'm trained to handle bad things once they do happen in order to reduce the likelihood of even worse things happening. To fit it into General McChrystal's framework, I am trained to see threats and then take action to reduce vulnerability, all with the goal of reducing risk.

And as a Parent?

It's the same.

We're all managing risk — whether we realize it or not (because risk is always present). The key is to do it intentionally.

So talk to your kids about risk. Give them a framework. Teach them the equation. Help them understand that life isn't about eliminating danger — it's about learning to face it with preparation, courage, and clarity.

Thanks for reading.

Resources:

Risk: A User's Guide by General Stanley McChrystal

I love General McChrystal's discussion of The "Risk Immune System," so I figured I'd include the 10 components here to try to entice you to pick up the book. All of these are supposed to function together to reduce vulnerability:

1. Leadership
2. Communication
3. Narrative
4. Structure
5. Technology
6. Diversity
7. Bias
8. Action
9. Timing
10. Adaptability