Perhaps a debate:Free range parenting.

[Medusa]

Re: Perhaps a debate:Free range parenting.

I grew up literally in East Los Angeles. Probably why I am the way I am. But where I live now in La Puente, it's still a lower income Hispanic town. But on my little street (which goes to a dead end) our neighbors still come over. The kids play next door with the neighbor's free range rabbits. We all still know each other. And when I ride my bike home at 10 pm and go down the same path I always do.. I know the neighbors at the corner smoking pot in their garage will always wave and say hello to me as I pass by. I guess that's my version of a safe area.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Perhaps a debate:Free range parenting.

In Berlin parents still let their kids go places alone. It's just how it is here. I see kids on the subway by themselves alllll the time. Of course, there are limits. Almost no one is going to let their 5-year-old ride the subway by him/herself, for example. But a 9-year-old? Totally normal.

I was free-range growing up. I'm 30 now, so I guess it was pretty normal back then (at least it was where I lived...my parents weren't any more permissive than any of my friends' parents). Of course, there were boundaries. I could play in the empty lot down the street from a very young age and could go anywhere on the street, but wasn't allowed to leave the street when I was very young. When I was around 8 or 9, I could go to the corner store a few blocks away. When I was 9 or 10, I was allowed in the local forest (which backed onto my best friend's house). When I was 11, I started babysitting and started coming home alone after school. When I was 12, I took the bus alone. That sort of thing. Always a little bit more freedom each year.

[habbalah]

Re: Perhaps a debate:Free range parenting.

The point of that is this: make certain that your kids understand the difference between appropriate and inappropriate contact, that they know that they are trusted and believed when they tell you things, and that mom and dad will deal with bad shit if it happens, one way or another.

Yeah, the problem with that is when someone you trust inappropriate touches you, like a family member, and you're too young and confused to understand what happened. I was seven or eight when I was molested by an uncle. I was a free-range kid, but the only person that ever really hurt me as a kid was someone I used to adore and went to stay with every summer.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Perhaps a debate:Free range parenting.

This article sort of explains what I was talking about earlier in this thread: http://time.com/3720541/how-to-parent-like-a-german/

I didn't grow up here, but because I moved here at 21, a lot of my ideas of adulthood come from here. Obviously my own parents played a big role as well, but my mom is German and my parents are both fairly liberal. Minus taking the subway, most of this doesn't sound so far off from my own childhood (sub that dragon for hanging off trees and sub walking to the bakery to walking to the corner store).

I do feel the pangs of not getting that cone, though. Everyone I know has all these pictures of their first day of school, complete with giant cones filled with stuff and glowing, smiling faces. They all talk about it like it was the best day ever. I kind of feel like I missed out! I'll probably overcompensate with my own children's cones.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Perhaps a debate:Free range parenting.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2011/08/31/a_1979_first_grade_readiness_checklist_asks_if_your_child_can_tr.html

Seriously? A school not letting kids walk home alone until the 5th grade? The bewilderment at kids walking a few blocks on their own at 6? Do these parents not have memories? That was totally normal when we were kids (in the late 80s/early 90s, on my part). I'm pretty sure it was everywhere.

sorry that I keep posting about this, but I'm just totally bewildered at the state of parenting in North America (I'm pretty sure it's the same situation in Canada). When I left Canada in 2005, I'm pretty sure it wasn't like this. I've been living in Germany for a decade, and it just blows me away how much the place has changed. I know I've changed too, but it has definitely changed.

Meanwhile in Berlin, Germany, my boyfriend and I were greeted by a group of girls between around 7 and 10 who were trick or treating (we told them it wasn't Halloween, but they said that "it can be Halloween if you want it to be") along the streets on Saturday night. It was 10 pm or so, and there was not an adult anywhere in sight. They had no hesitations about talking to strangers. This is totally normal here (though we were positive that their parents must be at a cafe or dinner party somewhere near by).

[Odahviing]

[anunitu]

Re: Perhaps a debate:Free range parenting.

So the parents that had their kids taken have again been hit with neglect charges for their "Free range parenting"

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/maryland...er-fire-again/

I know this is a "Hot" spot for some people,as well as a debate on free range parenting.

it does seem a bit over done by the powers that be...

- - - Updated - - -

Though I understand the safety concern with young kids,I do think the powers that be may be over stepping a bit. I mean what next,citing the parents for not requiring the kida to eat enough veggies or meat(or in some cases not allowing the kids to NOT eat meat(cause the powers that be are vegen))

I think you can see where I am going with this,where do you define the line about state control.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Perhaps a debate:Free range parenting.

Based on some of the articles I've recently seen and some of the comments that American friends (who live here*) have posted on Facebook, I really think that half of Europe would end up at odds with child protective services by current US standards...

*For example, they post stuff like this, usually in total awe and admiration: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2015/04/...ntent=20150403 (there's a very similar playground in Berlin...it is also very popular). I also got a lot of the previous articles I posted on here from American friends who wanted to comment on raising kids here vs in the US.

[anunitu]

Re: Perhaps a debate:Free range parenting.

It is something here for some reason,its helicopter parenting(always right there,controlling everything a child does) and also pushing for a path for the children,even if the child does not want that path. (artistic child,forced into a science path because parents see that as a prestigious path) I think it has to due with parents trying to re do their own childhood,but with very strict rules. It has also been mentioned that our media creates a state of fear in our populous. One thing I read is that this government parenting does not so much happen with non white kids...So there is a whole new topic perhaps as it applies difference in reaction to seeing a white 10 year old on their own,and a black 10 year old out and about alone.

[thalassa]

Re: Perhaps a debate:Free range parenting.

There is no reason your average 10 year old shouldn't be allowed walk their sibling to or from to the park without their parents.

At 10, I was riding my bike to the library, 5 miles away, downtown.

becausehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...5b4_story.html

I like this:

'Free-range parenting' sounds like children are politically correct chickens. Outside the contemporary middle class U.S., typically developing, intelligent, school-age children the world over, living in post-industrial urban environments or small-scale communities, are demonstrably self-reliant in basic life skills, including finding their way home and running errands. In addition, they are expected to care for younger siblings and otherwise help hard-working parents to keep the family and household intact.
"Indeed, these skills were unremarkable in the not-so-distant past in the childhoods of Baby Boomers. What has changed in the U.S. parenting zeitgeist is a shift from what the late historian Tony Judt called 'the politics of social cohesion' (trust in a secure and stable social infrastructure) to 'the politics of fear' (think 'terrorism' on every street corner)."

source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2015/0...ange-parenting

[anunitu]

Re: Perhaps a debate:Free range parenting.

I think about the fact that I am older,and what happens if this kind of mindset begins to apply to older people,and they decide I can no longer make my own decisions.


The idea of over protection is a slippery slope(In some ways this is where Prohibition came from,it was pushed by religious groups)