I can look back at my life and see the times when I should have taken the non default option. I shouldn't have gone to uni, I should have chosen different subjects at college. However, it's easy to see that now, at the time it didn't seem like a choice.

So my takeaway from this kind of argument is to explain to my kids that they do have choices and they can make them, and it's not the end of the world if those were the riskier options that didn't turn out well. You can go back to education etc.

There are, of course, irreversible decisions. But when it comes to risk surely the greatest risk is getting old and thinking "dang, wish I'd done that when I was younger, now it's too hard / late and my life is that little bit more boring"