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."

My New Favorite Book

I have been a fan of Lenore Skenazy's writing for a long time, since reading her columns in one of our favorite monthly papers, The Funny Times (please keep in mind, if you follow that link, that those who know me best often refer to me as a "bleeding-heart liberal"... this paper leans, perhaps more than slightly, to the left - and, it's really, really funny).

Last summer, I read that Lenore had started a blog, Free-Range Kids, after she became known as "America's Worst Mom" for allowing her 9 year-old to ride the subway on his own. I enthusiastically checked it out and ended up placing Free-Range Kids into my Blogroll (over there, to the right). I love it because it's the antithesis to helicopter parenting; every new post helps me to remember that, while we live in an era of heightened media coverage, we do not necessarily live in an era of heightened crime, child abduction, or Death By Raw Cookie Dough.

Lenore now has a book, Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts With Worry, coming out next month, and I cannot wait! She's turned the title "America's Worst Mom" around on itself, proudly using it as a rallying cry for those who dare to disagree with parenting experts about how young is too young to ride a bike to a friend's house alone, or use the stove, or... (place your worst fear for your children here). I must say that, as a homeschooling mom with some experience disagreeing with parenting experts on what's right for my children, I am enjoying the free-range/helicopter debate very much!

Anyway, the introduction to the book has now been placed online, and you can read it here. I hope you enjoy it, and I'd love to hear your thoughts about free-range kids; if yours are still young, do you hover more than you'd like to? If they are older, how did you handle their need for independence combined with your need to assure their safety?

I'm still working on the right combination - mostly, I try to stop and think before immediately saying "no." I also try to include the boys in decisions about their independence/my need for their safety, and I'm learning that making mistakes can be good for them. Not set-the-house-on-fire, lose-an-arm kind of mistakes, but still... as the saying goes, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Thanks to Lenore Skenazy, my 8 year-old makes a great omelet!

First Day of Freedom

Last week was Owen's first without preschool, and we celebrated our new all-homeschool, all-the-time status with a trip to a favorite old haunt of mine:

A reservoir - or, more specifically, a huge big rock that juts out over the reservoir, a place I used to bike to when I needed to sit and think starting from about age 12 or so.

Luke called it a 'rock playground.'

Could I imagine any possible world in which he would be biking here, in a short 4 years, when he's 12? No; sadly, it's a different world we live in now. (Although Lenore Skenazy's trying to change this!)

But the place is still here to explore, still in its' beautiful, pristine condition, just the way I remember it.

Thank goodness.