reminds me of a NERD video where they show a bunch of BPs and the guy presenting them just gets bit over and over again by different BPs, i think 4 times, and his hands just get bloodier and bloodier through the video ^^ And it doesnt even distract him or slow him down.
and here an amazing talk about 5 dangerous things yo should let your kids do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXhddUqNNjo
basically if you keep your children too safe, and guard them against everything perceived (often wrongly) as being dangerous, they might fail to pick up any risk management skills.
BTW as a kid i did all of these things.
Playing with non-venomous snakes that might or might not bite you fits in perfectly. I wouldnt protect my kids (if i had kids) from a harmless snake byte at the cost of them missing out on everything they can learn from it.