A few months after my middle child turned 3, he came home from his German preschool beaming; he’d learned to light a match. My first reaction was confusion. Was he making this up? Surely playing with fire wasn’t part of my child’s play-based preschool curriculum. But I wasn’t sure — as a 44-year-old American mom in Berlin, I’m constantly confronted with situations that would be considered reckless back home. On one day care tour, I saw toddlers wielding real saws and hammers. Panic surged through me. Could my 3-year-old climb up to the highest shelf in our kitchen and find where we’d hidden our own tools?

The day after my son told me this, I sat in on his class’s morning circle and watched the teachers continue their match-lighting lesson. I was both horrified and fascinated. The childr

See Full Page