OT: Free Range Kids

[paramount]

Fighting the belief that our children are in constant danger from creeps, kidnapping, germs, grades, flashers, frustration, failure, baby snatchers, bugs, bullies, men, sleepovers and/or the perils of a non-organic grape.

Seriously – do you have your kids on 24/7/365 lock-down, in a bubble – protected with all your might from the world’s perils?

Is this the root of decline in our society – the reason why we have 30+ year olds still living at home in the basement?

Kids so protected they’re not ready to face the world?

Brief (really good) Interview

[spdrun]

It’s interesting to note that in the Germanic countries, parents are yelled at by school officials for NOT letting their kids walk to school alone — kids are expected to learn situational awareness and independence at a young age, and hindering that is considered unsafe.

Funny story: my mom lived with her grandma and mom in a small apartment after WW II — grandma used to send her out to the newsstand on the street to buy a pack of smokes for her. When she was four 🙂

I think the East Coast is also more relaxed than CA about kids going out alone. The mildly annoying sk8ter punks who hang out on my street seem to range from about 8 to high school, and most kids in my NJ hometown are walking to school (alone or with friends) by 9 or 10. It’s a small city, so no busing offered nor required.

I know I was biking to meet friends at the beach by that age as well, and yeah, we had homeless weirdos and druggies kind of like OB.

[tc]

I blame TV news.
Now we are being reminded constantly that not even school is safe.

[tc]

Don’t even think about moving to Florida with them. They wouldn’t be safe inside the house.
Scary Stuff

[spdrun]

^^^

Did I miss something?

[NotCranky]

Mine are still 10 and under and I am pretty protective, but we go to places and events all the time and they can explore those independently to a pretty good degree at times. For instance if we are in the middle of the beach at OB…they can walk out on the pier or go down the beach the other way for a while. They are not locked in a room with a TV or games. They have an awesome tree fort well away from the house and a BMX track that I will let them improve to their skill level over time. They go to friend’s places, but I won’t let them hitch hike or drop them off downtown and say have a nice day or let them go to a lake with a steep drop off while they are still beginning swimmers, all things I did often as a kid. The idea of dropping them off at a mall,, something that seems pretty popular for suburbanites makes ME barf.

BTW, I am very anti-authority perhaps to a fault, can’t be locked up in a room 9-5 if my life depended on it. Perhaps all this freedom is not such a good life skill builder.

The question always comes up when these topics come up, Imagine what kind of trouble a parent could get into with CPS if something happened to a kid who was as independent as some of us were as kids?

I am strict about what the kid’s eat try to teach them about portions and low frequency of sweets/junk food. They don’t watch cable television,or have video games.

A kid that stays in his room all the time and veges out might be lost. Mine will be so glad to get away from me that they will learn to function in society no matter what it takes.

[CA renter]

This comment from a young viewer of the video (YouTube comment) sums it up nicely:

S[…]H[…] 5 months ago

The degree of paranoia in our society today is bringing kids up to be extremely dependent and sheltered. Do you want to know how I probably have matured the most? By doing things without my parents. I’m 17, and I leave the *state* on a regular basis (~60 miles by train) with zero adult supervision (I’ve been doing it for a year and a half now). Clearly, I didn’t get mugged/abducted/murdered, but it helped teach me independence- something that you really should learn sooner or later…

————-

The fact is, crime rates are down today (the streets are NOT more dangerous) and even if you are around your kids 100% of the time, there is still no guarantee that your kids will be “safe.”

Some of the most notorious abductions and/or child murders happened when parents/grandparents were home and children were taken from their own bedrooms:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Polly_Klaas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Smart_kidnapping

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Westerfield [Danielle Van Dam]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jessica_Lunsford

————

Naturally, common sense should prevail and the environment, nature/personality/”street smarts” of the children, etc. should all play a part in how much freedom one’s children should have. Parents also need to role-play with their kids and explain the many different worst-case scenarios they might experience and help them determine what the best actions would be if they encounter unsavory characters or dangerous situations.

But how many of us look back on our childhood and think: “Gosh, those days spent with mom and dad watching my every move were the best of times!” Probably very few of us would want to change anything about our free and adventurous childhoods. It’s a shame that many parents won’t extend the same consideration to their own kids today. Kids should be allowed to earn age-appropriate freedom, IMHO.

[zk]

[quote=CA renter]

Naturally, common sense should prevail and the environment, nature/personality/”street smarts” of the children, etc. should all play a part in how much freedom one’s children should have. Parents also need to role-play with their kids and explain the many different worst-case scenarios they might experience and help them determine what the best actions would be if they encounter unsavory characters or dangerous situations.
[/quote]

I agree that we’ve become too protective. Myself included (and my wife even more – I’m trying to back her off).

I’ve done the “what to do in the worst case scenario” thing that you mention, CAR, and now I’m not sure it was such a good idea. It’s not like we bombarded our child with this stuff; it was occasional. Yet sometimes she’ll ask about it like she expects it to happen some day. I have to explain that it’s very unlikely that something like that will ever happen to her. That she’ll probably go her whole life and nothing like that will ever happen. I’d like her to be a bit less afraid. Fear is one of the consequences of over-protective parenting (along with lack of independence and underdevelopment of life skills), and that fear will hinder their development if we over protect them.

[UCGal]

I didn’t watch the interview. (Youtube videos are frowned upon at work.) I’ve read some interviews by the FreeRangeKids mom. I find myself agreeing with her quite a bit.

When I look at what I was allowed to do growing up – it’s night and day to today. I walked to school from kindergarten on… in a group… but no parents. Most parents drive their kids. We chose to walk our kids – but did stay with them. And it’s an apples to apples comparison. I live in the house I grew up in, and my kids attended the same school I attended. We had other parents question why we’d make young kids walk so “far”. (It was about 0.5 mile.)

I rode the bus from UC to Clairemont starting in 7th grade. This was a public bus. That same year I started taking ballet classes through the park and rec’s department – in Balboa Park – took the bus, including a transfer at the PRE-MALL Horton Plaza. No one thought that was unusual for an 11 year old girl.

I’m considering having my son take public transit home from his middle school next year. It will involve a transfer downtown. Friends think I’m nuts. But he’s a responsible kid. My husband is not convinced yet.

We’ve tried to teach the kids basic skills – like cooking. I have friends who don’t let their kids use the stove… for fear of the house burning down. (I’m more worried about messes and food waste.)

For those that say it’s different, more dangerous now… I call BS. There were child predators then. There was a flasher that flashed a girl walking home from elementary school back in the day. (The police later caught him.). She reacted properly – she screamed, and ran home – drawing all the parents out as she ran by.

We can’t protect our kids – we can train them to make good choices… but that means actually let them out into the world.

[spdrun]

My walk to school was about 0.5 mi — that was actually considered “close” to the middle school since we practically lived in the center of town.

[CA renter]

[quote=zk][quote=CA renter]

Naturally, common sense should prevail and the environment, nature/personality/”street smarts” of the children, etc. should all play a part in how much freedom one’s children should have. Parents also need to role-play with their kids and explain the many different worst-case scenarios they might experience and help them determine what the best actions would be if they encounter unsavory characters or dangerous situations.
[/quote]

I agree that we’ve become too protective. Myself included (and my wife even more – I’m trying to back her off).

I’ve done the “what to do in the worst case scenario” thing that you mention, CAR, and now I’m not sure it was such a good idea. It’s not like we bombarded our child with this stuff; it was occasional. Yet sometimes she’ll ask about it like she expects it to happen some day. I have to explain that it’s very unlikely that something like that will ever happen to her. That she’ll probably go her whole life and nothing like that will ever happen. I’d like her to be a bit less afraid. Fear is one of the consequences of over-protective parenting (along with lack of independence and underdevelopment of life skills), and that fear will hinder their development if we over protect them.[/quote]

Without trying to sound paranoid, there IS a good chance that your daughter will end up in a situation at some point in her life where she will have to react in order to protect herself. It might be a “date” gone wrong, a (naked!) stranger approaching her in a parking lot, a man driving up alongside her masturbating (usually asking for directions in a quiet voice in order to lure kids closer to the car), or a family “friend” or someone working on the house who wants to teach her “new things.” All of the above happened to me growing up, but nobody was successful because I knew how to react. Most of the girls (and some boys, or even co-ed groups) I knew growing up had to deal with similar situations at some point in their lives. This was in L.A. during the 70s and 80s.

Believe it or not, we didn’t make a big deal of any of these things, cops weren’t called in most cases (though they should have been), and we just accepted it as a normal part of life. I think that’s what we need to teach our kids: yes, bad and/or dangerous things might happen, but you just have to know how to deal with it.

Unfortunately, some kids get really scared, especially when you first start talking about these things, but I think it helps if you simply point out dangerous situations as you make your way through life. For example, when my kids and I are walking through a parking lot and I notice a man standing around (especially if near a van/vehicle with blacked-out windows, etc.) who’s just checking people out in the parking lot, I ask them what they think they should do, and explain that they should go back into the store and ask for an escort. IMHO, it’s just a matter of showing them, in “real life,” how to avoid certain situations, and how to deal with them in case they aren’t able to avoid them altogether.

Our kids used to be scared about these things, too, but I think they get a better understanding of the odds, and the reality of the situation, as they get older.

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