Most of you won’t remember this Sesame Street classic — or will you?
Some day this kind of independence will be normal again. Parents will trust their kids. Kids will trust their abilities. And it will seem sick and strange to call 911 to report a happy, confident child becoming a part of the world.
But until then…take a look:
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I remember this. The original Sesame Street was genius.
Not only do I remember it, it’s the reason that when my kiddo was 5, I knew it was perfectly reasonable to send her to the corner store for milk. Which I did. She had to cross a residential, but fairly high-traffic street, so I had her cross it on the end closer to our house so that I could watch her. I watched her look both ways, think it was clear, but then a car pulled up to the stop sign…she panicked and then darted in front of the damn car even though I had coached her to wait for the traffic to pass by. But i kept my damn mouth shut (REEEEALLLY HARD TO DO). She waved to me when she got across the street – I waved back, kept my damn mouth shut, gave her a thumbs up and then went inside so she wouldn’t feel watched.
When she got home, we talked about the experience and I asked her about how things went at the crosswalk the first time. She said she forgot to wait for the car to go by. I said it looked like it was ok from where I was standing, but it’s a good idea to make sure the car sees you before you cross in front of it. We practiced that a bit.
To this day (age 22) they have not been hit by a car in a crosswalk…or kidnapped…or murdered…or turned into a broken person because mom let them cross the street at age 5….