Free Range Children?

[Jschneier]

Ok, so I am as guilty as the normal parent today of not letting my 11 and 8 year old play outside by themselves, let alone take public transportation alone. Granted I live in NYC and I use that excuse to justify this but I was wondering if you had read this article: Why FreeRange? « FreeRangeKids

What do you parents think about the idea of letting your kids (let's say ages 8-12) out of your sight? Crime is down in New York but parents rarely let their kids play outside alone anymore...do you think this makes sense?

Do you think that we just know too much nowadays or do you think it is actually better that children are more supervised than they were in the past?

Personally I think I am more afraid of other parents calling social services on me than I am off kidnappers but I still have tended to keep a close eye on my kiddos...

[Xero]

There's no guilt in caring about the safety of your children. Nobody on this earth is about to convince me that I care TOO MUCH about my kid being safe. That's like saying "You care too much about how healthy your kids eat. I mean what the heck, we ate whatever we wanted to when we were little and only SOME of us got fat and unhealthy!" lol I mean come on, for real?

That lady in the article can do whatever she wants with her kids, and I'm not going to say anything to her. But I do not think she has any right to be preaching to anybody. Just because the same amount of kids died from parents not caring enough a few years ago as they did this year, doesn't make the prospect of my kid possibly being harmed look any more appealing. However small the chances are of my boy dying without me looking, I don't want HIM to be the one that makes up that little statistic, you know? I don't see how its worth it to be the "cool" mom that doesn't really care what her kids are up to.

And here's where my real problem with this is. Lets put the "dying" thing aside (the only topic she really approached in her article) and take a look at the numerous other things that could happen to a kid when you let them loose on their own. There are plenty of other kids around the neighborhood, some of which weren't raised in a good home. My mom let me "free roam" when I was a kid. A lot of other people claimed that in her article too. But that's the REASON why we don't let ours free roam, because we remember all the stuff we encountered when our parents weren't there to save us. There were several boys in my neighborhood when I was real little (5-8) and they were very badly behaved, and had me involved with it every time I was with them. For instance, they played with fire a lot and convinced me to try it out. They convinced me to show them my privates (nothing happened, but isn't that disturbing?) and hit me a lot just because they were little brats and just did a lot of inappropriate things because there was no one looking and it didn't matter. I wasn't allowed to play by the pond, and they would convince me to go right in it and mess around in the nasty water. I was subject to them abusing animals (stomping frogs etc) and they swore and said nasty things that I had never heard before. My mom would let me ride my bike anywhere, including across the highway. I can recall at least two or three times where I was very close to getting hit, squeeling tires and all. I remember SOOOO much bad stuff my cousins and I used to do when I lived next to them (10-13 yrs old) including climbing on top of the roof of shops and trying to smoke cigarettes (I don't smoke) and going places we shouldn't be. I mean I could go on forever!! Some things did harm me or could have harmed me, and other things were just plain nasty things that I wouldn't want my son involved with for the most part.

There's MORE to it than "well the chances of him DYING are like slim to none". I don't just not want my son to DIE, I don't want anything bad happening to him. There's too much evil in this world for me to just look past it and send him out to god knows where by himself because it would be more convenient. You know?? It's laziness, pure and simple. Next thing you know you're dealing with "Omg your son touched my son's privates and taught him some nasty things its so awful its all your son's fault!" No, its the PARENTS faults for NOT WATCHING. Okay?

[Rosa]

Charlie goes out on her own, we live in a fairly small village there are 9 houses, surrounded by farm land, the only place to misbehave is under the nose of a neighbour,if you so much as look at a farmers field, you will be marched to the farm house to do some dirty work, so when the children are old enough to play outside on their own, they soon learn that nothing goes unnoticed and mum and dad will know what you have done before you get home.
I know at the moment Charlotte and her friend are spies, inspired by a book called spies that mum read to them a few weeks ago, so now they sit in a privet bush recording when everyone leaves their houses and whether they do to the shops or leave the village.
Charlie hasn't really misbehaved out the home, just normal things, well things that we consider normal here and things we did as children, like horse poo fights and trying really hard to get sheep to into peoples houses.

On mischievous night things are very different though, a few people stay up to make sure no one dodgy is in the village, then the kids are let loose to do what they have to do. Then in the morning you find your gate might be missing, your garden has a cow in it, your windows have been white washed. Last year our neighbours little smart car was moved by a kids farmer father, he put it in the middle of a maize maize, that was a good one.

[TabascoNatalie]

i guess it depends on how old the child is. 5 and 10 is A LOT of difference.
i'm one of those "city kids", who were allowed unsupervised from very yound age. as well as Xero, i can remember moments when older kids would ask to pull down my panties, etc.
i guess thing like that nobody would miss in their childhood.
about 10years old is appropriate to let free roam, but sure not 5.

[Jschneier]

Yeah I think I am really torn on this one--part of me is frightened about how kids will turn out when they have had adults monitoring them at every moment...part of me doesn't care because I also remember the negative aspects of having no adult around to keep everyone in line.

I guess the things I feel like my children are missing out on are the positive sides of of "free ranging"....like building a fort with your friends in the trees or playing hide and go seek in the whole neighborhood...or spending all day outside sledding and coming in to a warm house with hot cocoa waiting for you. Not to say you can't do these things with a parent but there was something magical about being with just the kids.

I agree that the issue shouldn't be about a child dying but more about what kids do to each other...which is often just as nasty as what adults can do.

[fallon]

my daughter plays outside with her friends without me there watching everything they do. I always know where they're at and what they're doing and keep a close eye but I don't stand outside and watch their every move. Maybe that makes me "lazy", I don't know, personally I feel OK with it. All the parents in the neighborhood are basically the same way and we watch out for all the kids, not just our own. Mind you we're in a townhouse complex so we can all see what's going from our kitchen windows.

[Xero]

Well and honestly, everyone's situation is different, and nothing can really be judged as a whole, but there's one thing if your kids are outside playing and you're not literally standing there with your eyeballs on them and there's another thing when little kids are roaming the streets at night in the city I live in harassing people and getting into trouble and their parents don't have a care and the kid in the article who rode the subway all across town by himself.

But I can see how it wouldn't be a big deal if your kids were all playing outside in an area where you KNEW where they were and you could easily walk out your door and over to where they were playing to check on them. You know? I mean, it still gets iffy, and you still can't guarantee nothing is going to happen, but its far less of a big deal than some of the other stuff parents let their kids do. And I would let my son take his sled out in the back yard or near the house somewhere I could check on him if I wanted to with his friends and just play without me at a certain age. I suppose there are a lot of gray areas when it comes to this subject, but there is a lot of really obvious stuff that I consider laziness. My mom hardly had any idea of where I was all day long from the time I was five. I rode a plane (switched planes too) by myself at age 6. I rode a BUS and switched busses an a trip that took an entire day when I was 11 or 12 by myself. I'm sure a lot of people were looking at me like "what is her mom thinking?".

[abbey.barclay]

Wow, talk about a slap upside the head. I will be loosening up a bit on my 8 YO this summer…not too much, but we live in a smaller town…and I’ll let her play the next culdesac over, etc…thanks. When I think about how far and wide I ranged as a child. However, I am planning to have a friend of my son’s teach my daughters (17 & 8) a bit of self-defense. The friend helps train military, law enforcement, SWAT teams–he’s good

[fallon]

there are some kids in the neighborhood here and you can tell their parents don't watch them at all...I can't stand that. I think it depends a lot on the child, and it makes a big difference that I can see or hear my child no matter where she's at. I also know who she's with and trust the parents of those kids to be watching as well as I am

[IADad]

Wow Rosa - Fairly Small = 9 Houses? Makes me wonder what "small" and "really small" are... ;-)

I understand the OP's point about the posititve things kids miss out on, but I'm just not willing to risk much. We have lots of land and no neighbors and even so, the kids have to stay where we can see, hear, be heard...We've heard too many stories about somebody driving down a country road and picking up a kid. I don't feel any safer here than I would in Brooklyn.

i don't fear reports to social services, I think if you care for your kids and honestly put forth the effort to be a parent then you have nothing to fear from social services.

I do wondr about letting our 7 yo do little bits more, and we do try to give him a little more free reign (i.e. we will let him go to a counter at the food court alone, as long as he is in our sight...etc.) I want to teach him to be independent and teach him those survival skills for the real world but not at the risk of something bad happening.