jtee

On the park issue. We are going with what my wife thinks is acceptable. She thinks it is OK for our daughter to go to the park for 1 hour or 4:30pm after school, which ever comes first. She has to go\return with one of her girl friends and have a cell phone. They can't leave the park and go any where. All rules about talking\meeting with strangers always apply. If I am concerned about the kids activities, well I can have my daily run at the park, which I already do about 25% of the time.

My wife's argument is that this park is a safe place for kids because of the amount of adults that are always around in the afternoon. My wife feels if there are going to be any problems our daughter socializing with older middle school boys, my wife wants to start dealing with it now, not push it off into the future. She perceive any issues that might arise will be small ones not big ones.

The agreement we have worked out with our daughter is that if she can't stick with the agreement, then the park will become off limits without adult supervision.

We had her write the agreement on her computer. It took a several revisions, but we finally agreed. It was kind of fun (for us), because she had to work out all the details herself.