Free-Range Justification

Since I first came across Lenore Skenazy's excellent anti-helicopter-parenting blog, Free-Range Kids, I've been a more confident and happier mom. In a recent post, she asked readers to give suggestions for any quick one-liners they use to refute anti-free-rangers. What do you say to someone who makes you feel guilty for allowing your nine-year-old to stay home alone while you run an errand, for example, or ride his bike around the neighborhood - gasp - without you?

Some of the responses are great, short and sweet, like “My, what a scary world you live in!” or, “Forty-five people a year die in Thanksgiving turkey-related accidents. Clearly, we need to ban Thanksgiving.”

But I decided to post about this tonight after reading one specific comment, from a psychologist named Megan who sees daily the results of helicopter parenting:

I have not been a mother all that long, my children are 5 and 2, but I am a clinical psychologist who has the regular opportunity to see the devestating (the only word that really fits) impact that highly regulated parenting is having on our children. I sit everyday with teens and twenty somethings who have no sense of who they are. I am not exaggerating-no sense. They don’t understand their emotions. They don’t know how to entertain themselves. They cannot comment on their likes or dislikes. They do not display any sign of awe or wonderment or questioning of anything. And what I am seeing, more and more, is not the same as the flatness that accompanies depression. This is as if somebody stole their soul. I feel somedays like I am in a science fiction movie. This is what I see as the most dangerous outcome to the kind of parenting you are encouraging us to move away from. Forget how stressed out (I have seen more anxiety than ever before), disconnected (think 5 teenagers standing around together, but all either talking to or texting someone else rather than interacting with each other) and branded (if I see one more pair of sweatpants with JUICY across the butt I am going to throw up) this generation is, lets worry most that they have been robbed of the opportunity to develop. Period. How about that for a media headline “Parents beware: 1 in 2 children will have the essence of their being crushed to nothingness by the age of 12″. Okay, maybe a little extreme, but you get my point. Fear of stranger abduction? Maybe we need to take a closer look at who is really doing the abducting all under the guise of loving, devoted parenting.

... no "sign of awe or wonderment"

From fall 2009

From fall 2009

... "robbed of their opportunity to develop"

From fall 2009

From fall 2009

... "as if somebody stole their soul"

From fall 2009

This is scary stuff, and helps me realize how crucial it is that kids be free-range. This post, my first of the 'school' year, was going to just be a fun, check-out-all-the-great-stuff-we've-been-doing kind of post, but I couldn't help myself when I read this psychologist's words.

Whether you homeschool or not, whether you are rich or poor, old or young, please encourage the kids in your life to be free-range. Let them take chances, let them explore, let them be independent as much as possible! It's okay because, to sum up with another great one-liner from Lenore's post, "kids bounce."