Blame

Hang in there, Lenore! You may be a villian to some, but you’re a hero to many others! The brave do what they do not because they have no fear, but because it’s the right thing to do, in spite of their fear.

They’ll see frustration and anger as a chink in your armor, and dive right in, so perhaps if you imagine these idiots that continue to buy into their own media hype as simply playing Devil’s Advocate, that will give you the emotional distance to help you keep the calm and decorum necessary for getting a truly long-lived message out there…

It’s way too early in the morning, and I’ve not had enough coffee yet to come up with allegorical examples, or anything more inspiring than that, so it’ll have to do.

I don’t have kids, but I really hope to in the next year or so, and will be taking part in annual “Take Our Children to the Park & Leave Them There Day” as soon as possible!

Yep, keep hanging in there! I read your blog everyday and it reminds me that there are other parents out there with the same views as me.

My kids will be out and about in the neighborhood and park on Saturday!!

And I’ll be reading on the porch. 🙂

You win some, you lose some. If it were easy to speak the truth every time, then everyone would do it and we probably wouldn’t have half the problems we do in our society. Stand strong, my friend. Someone has to topple the first domino!

You are a very strong woman Lenore, and you have the strength of thousands of supporters behind you! For all the fearful parents out there, there are many with common sense parenting skills, thanks to you! I love your blog and it gives me the courage to be the type of parent I want to be, despite what others say, and gives my kids the independence they need to grow to be leaders.

Sorry that you have to take the heat for being a proponent of something that should not be controversial at all! Thank you for articulating the cause of independent children and for assuring me I am not endangering my own children when I tell them to bike down the street to their friend’s house and ask them to ‘come out and play’. Here’s hoping that some day soon you will be universally hailed as a champion of a worthy cause!

Never forget that those who are the loudest are usually those who have the least logical or least well-thought out (wow, does that even make any sense?) arguements. While my daughter is too young to take to a park and leave there (she’s 2.5), I will probably stick her in raincoat and boots and send her outside to frolic in the mud and wet grass in our backyard. And I do routinely allow her to go more than 3.5 feet away from me to go play on big play structures like the one at our zoo–reminiscent of the “hamster tubes ‘n tunnels” style play places of my childhood (in the 90’s…does that make me really young?)–where when she’s at the top, there’s no way I’m going to be able to get to her if she needs me. I frequently see parents of children larger/older than my daughter telling the poor kids that they can’t play on the big playground because they’re too little–as my daughter shimmies up the climbing things, working out for herself how to haul her body up something she’s an inch or two too short to do easily. Hey look! Problem solving! Working hard to get what you want! Perseverance! Determination! Creativity! What a wonderful set of lessons to learn, all from climbing up a silly play structure…while the other kids are learning what? Helplessness, not to take risks, not to challenge themselves, stick to the sure thing, fear, victimization, take the easy road.

I’ll take my way, thanks. It’s nicer here. And quieter, since my daughter is allowed to play out of my sight even when we’re at home, or while I”m in the shower, or even, sometimes, while I take a nap.

I have been quietly reading your accounts of your press tour on this weekend’s festivities, and honestly wondering why you don’t just give up.

Except I know why. You’re doing it for moms like me, who shoved her kids out the door to the playground across the street for all of their little lives.

I applaud your tenacity and its motivation.

And I will resist the urge to send my older boys to the park alone on Saturday, lest any passing mom think the earrings and punk haircuts undermine the safety of the kids left alone (though I swear they’re harmless).

“it will be very easy for the evening news to ignore the “everyday” tragedies of car accidents and ill health, because, of course, it already does. Sure, those things kill kids. But there’s no drama in them.”

And more to the point, car companies spend lots of money on advertising, so telling people how dangerous cars are to children will reduce your revenue.

Hang in there. I know I keep saying this, but what you are suggesting is normal here and we don’t have thousands of children kidnapped every day.

You’re just being different, and it makes sense. Unfortunately the bullies don’t like someone standing up to them.

Keep going.

I know this will be hard for you. But please link to every negative story and discussion you see about the day or yourself. Your supporters will want to take a stand in defense of Free Range.

You may feel you’re in the crosshairs, but you’re also a voice of reason and have given many, many parents the extra little push they needed to allow their children to take a little risk.

If younger children can’t learn to manage small challenges and judge their own capacity to cope with a situation, please tell me what will happen when they’re 16 and in a car alone for the first time. Or given the opportunity to say yes — or no — to the many, many choices about substances and friendships that face adolescents. Or try to manage a full courseload AND a part-time job AND roommates AND money AND all the aforementioned risks, once they get to college.

All of these baby steps we let our children take prepare them for those final steps out the door. And we are not doing our job as parents if we don’t let them start taking some steps on their own way, way before they’re out that door.

Keep it up.

You are a Messiah carrying the good news to all media-hyped hystrical parents everywhere…but you do know what happened to the last guy they called Messiah don’t ya? 🙂 Love Ya – Go Get ‘Em Girl!!

Thanks! I was (am) one of those parents. I was absolutely against letting my daughter play outdoors without any supervision. After reading through some of your posts I am realizing how ridiculus I have been. I have a friend that refuses to go to a play in NYC because of the recent threat in Times Square which I thought was crazy but, I am JUST as crazy. Nothing insane has happened in my neighborhood, town, or even county. But here I am not allowing my child to be a child because of a teeny tiny risk. You’re right, the risk does not outway the reward.

Through all the criticism, name calling, and worse that you will endure, please know that you have reached an audience that already agreed with you, and you have converted at least 1 (me!) that did not. So thank you, again, and keep up the good work.

So we were cruising the children’s section of our local library yesterday evening, and notice that Free Range Kids has the display spot of prominence in the “new parents” section. Blissfully, What to Expect was nowhere to be seen. So there you go. Change may be slow, but IT’S COMING!!!!! At least to Bedford.

I appreciate you! You changed mine and my kids lives.

Hang in there, Lenore! I’m sure this day will be a heads-up lesson for many parents who have just forgotten what to advise kids in free-play circumstances. Hopefully, they will experience just how much sedentarism hurts their kids. You know, finding out your 8 yo son is totally incapable of having fun in a park in good weather… or that your 7 yo is anguished at having to go to the bathroom on his own…or the embarrasment when your 10 yo cries over a scratch… or the frustration when your 9 yo’s ball is snatched by a horde of 6 yos, and your voluminous kid doesn’t know what to do…

I wonder how much of this isn’t driven by actual beliefs about danger (though I don’t question that they do believe it) but by blame-shifting and self-reassurance.

If I don’t do Free-Range, then nothing bad can happen to me. If someone else does Free-Range, then if something happens to their kid, it’s THEIR FAULT and I don’t have to worry about that particular risk. And I don’t just mean the ultimately horrific stuff like Polly Klaas, but something as simply as a bone fracture at a playground.

And you hear people say that about things. “I did everything right, why should this happen to me?” IOW, I followed the magic formula, It’s Not Fair. But for everyone who it doesn’t happen to, it’s really comforting to believe that there’s a magic formula. These people simply don’t want to believe that Stuff Happens.

A girl in my neighborhood broke her arm crossing the monkey bars Monday. She had 3 adults there, and she fell anyway. It was in an unfamiliar neighborhood (at grandma’s) and her uncle ran to a neighbor’s house (they had walked to the park) and asked them to give him and the niece a ride home. BTW, he’s big and scruffy and scary looking with lots of tattoos. The neighbor looked confused for a second, said, “OK” and brought them to grandma’s. That’s what it SHOULD be like, and I hope I can talk more parents into letting their kids out of site.

You’ve literally changed my life with your blog and book. I can’t tell you how relieved I felt knowing my daughter isn’t going to get kidnapped. Please know that for every negative thing said about you, you have a whole group of people defending you and cheering you on.

@ the Mother: I think an important lesson for people to learn is don’t judge others by their appearance. My older brother has had blue hair since he was 16 (which caused quite the hullabaloo at church, let me tell you), until people realized he’s the same nice kid, with toilet water colored hair. I think you SHOULD send your kids, and then tell them to be extra nice and see if any little kids need help so their moms can see how wrong they are to judge.

Wow….lay the blame…never take the blame…thats the old standby now adays 🙁

I have a son who got hit in the head w/a baseball at baseball practice suffering a level 2 concussion and was taken off the field in an ambulance. He was 9 at the time. Not only was my husband there – but 4 coaches, lots of parents and team-mates……

He also was at a friends house the same summer and tripped and fell head first into a wooden toybox…split his head wide open requiring 19 stitches. The Mom was in the kitchen cooking pancakes….should I blame her for not being in the livingroom?? NO! I had people recommend I sue their house insurance ~ WHAT? My kid tripped and fell.

My point being….kids fall, they get hurt, things happen supervised or not.

Oddly I have a neighbor who is horrified that I let my 10 year old son outside to play….unsupervised (ok I do peek out occassionally lol)….he runs, rides his bike, shoots hoops, hits a ball w/a bat, digs in the dirt – basically acts like a 10yo boy……but I’m *wrong* to let him out ~*~Shrug~*~ and I’m sure it will be all my fault if anything happens to him

I’m so sorry that people are going to look at you to lay blame if anything happens. While my kids won’t be at the park (crazy busy family day) I give kudos to all the kids/parents who participate.

And like a previous poster mentioned Thank YOU for giving me the strength to do what I always thought was right! Letting kids be kids 🙂

Lenore –

no kids here, and I fully support what you do. I was a fairly free range kid (although i didn’t take advantage of it because I was shy and bookish by nature, and wanted to read inside) but I grew up in NYC, and while there were restrictions, by 13 I could pretty much go where I wanted (I just never wanted to go).

I think though, I may have a different take on why we have become so risk intolerant, especially in the last twenty years. I agree CNN and 24 hour news bears a big responsibility, but I think a part of it actually has to do with dual income households.

Having a child break their arm or need stitches means that a parent may have to leave work or take time off to deal with the results of an accident, especially if it’s a bad break, and the kid needs to be off school for a couple of days. You see parents demanding prescriptions because the kids can’t be sick because they would have to leave work, and then you also have people whose kids are sick so often, they’ve already used up any sick time or supervisor good will. So an accident is a big deal. I think people themselves feel so overscheduled and stressed themselves, they think if one bad thing happens (more than the usual bad things/family emergencies happens), they’re going to snap or not be able to handle it.

Anyway – I was a shy kid, and as someone who desperately resisted any kind of social situation, I suffered for it. I never really learned to stand up to the bully until I was an adult, and I still have problems doing it. These kids will be better off for it.

You can arrange pre-set pick up times, you can give them quarters for the phone and tell them to call you if they’re bleeding and it doesn’t stop, or if an adult tries something really bad (abuse, taking them out of the park, exposing themselves). But you can’t give them a childhood back once it’s gone.

Stay strong, Lenore. You know you’re doing the right thing.

In an attempt to help promote Take Your Child To The Park….And Leave Them There Day I’ve been posting on assorted parenting forums and other bulletin boards where moms congregate. I’ve seen everything from the typical blame the victim–“How would you feel if something terrible happened?”–to the pious–“I would never leave my child alone any place that I wouldn’t leave a million dollars.” It’s that last statement I want to address.

It certainly sounds like a wonderful rule of thumb, but dig a little deeper and it becomes clear how flawed that logic is. For starters, and this may seem to be an astoundingly obvious statement, money isn’t a child. Money doesn’t need to learn how to share, resolve conflict, solve problems, or any of the thousands of other skills children must learn in order to be successful adults. Even if you smack some googley eyes on it a la the Geico commercial, it’s still just a stack of money and has no needs whatsoever.

Money can’t fight back. If we have done our jobs as parents, our children should know that it’s not safe to go off with strangers. They should have a play book of what to do if someone threatens them or makes them uncomfortable. Money doesn’t have legs. It can’t run from a threat. It doesn’t have arms with which to defend itself, nor a voice with which to cry for help.

The second problem with this seemingly innocuous statement is a problem of scale. There are, presumably, way more people who would be interested in molesting or stealing a stack of money than in doing the same to a child. As Lenore has often pointed out, in this day and age of 24/7 cable news, CSI, Law & Order and other programs in which children are regularly depicted as the victims, it can be hard to remember that every moment is NOT an accident waiting to happen, every stranger is not an immediate threat to our children, and every second a child spends out of our sight is not the moment that they’ll decide to take a long walk off a short pier or decide while standing at the top of a cliff that they can fly.

Finally, the implication in the axiom of “don’t leave your child any place you wouldn’t leave a million dollars” is insidious. In fact, I ran across this statement weeks ago and the reason this axiom is so egregious has just recently bubbled to the surface of my mind as a coherent thought. It is the worst kind of blame the victim justification for helicopter parenting that I think I’ve run across. The underlying meaning is that any parent who could leave their child alone for even a second in what the writer considered to be an unsafe environment doesn’t value their children. The writer let herself off the hook by making it clear that she considers her children to be worth a million bucks while at the same time implying that I didn’t.

In fact, I think exactly the opposite is true. Not only do I think my child is worth a million bucks, I think other people who interact with him will see his potential. I think those people, if my son is threatened or hurt, will react to protect his potential if I’m not present to do so. I believe that the vast majority of people are inherently good. And I believe that a million bucks, whether stored in the mattress or kept chained to my side and never spent, is a fortune that has been wasted.

We learn from trying.
This started with your son seeking the challenge and adventure of navigating the subway by himself. This is becoming a challenge and adventure for you navigating the information highway, and broadcast airwaves, by yourself.

Go, Lenore! I sincerely hope you do not become a martyr for the cause, but it wouldn’t surprise me — because the cause is a good and worthy one, and the enemies of freedom and independence are great.

Oops, sorry if I sound like some right-wing conspiracy theorist there. In fact, many of the causes dear to my heart — e.g. homeschooling; homebirthing; small, sustainable, independent farming; family businesses; and yes, bringing up independent, responsible, capable children — have three things in common: a joyous affirmation of life, communities, families, nature, and freedom; a strong appeal to both the “right” and the “left” (albeit to a minority on both sides); and a fanatical opposition quite out of proportion to the “threat.”

John Holt said it best: “One of the saddest things I’ve learned in my life, one of the things I least wanted to believe and resisted believing for as long as I could, was that people in chains don’t want to get them off, but want to get them on everyone else. ‘Where are your chains?’ they want to know. ‘How come you’re not wearing chains? Do you think you are too good to wear them? What makes you think you’re so special?'”

Good causes attract opposition; great causes attract great opposition. Hang in there!

There IS a risk that something will happen to mar this event in the media. But as you have pointed out many times, risk is part of life. More importantly, even if something negative does happen, that doesn’t negate the not-so-obvious benefits of this event.

Thanks for putting yourself in the crosshairs on behalf of the rest of us. Thousands of kids will benefit for the price you’re paying.

It makes me sad to see mothers attacking mothers about absolutely EVERY aspect of child-rearing – even before you decide to get pregnant! Some of it stems from the human need to know WHY something happens. And some of it is the Blame Game. If, as a mother you are told constantly by other mothers, by safety products and books, and by media and ‘common knowledge’ that YOU CAN keep your child safe at all times and if you don’t it is solely your fault then you are going to start to believe it. If you buy all the products, and invest in all the background checks and research then CLEARLY you have done everything you can. That way, if a tragedy happens – it is someone else’s fault.

wow… reading these comments… Lenore, do you realize how many kids’ lives you’ve improved already? don’t know about you, but Neener’s post above brought an actual tear of joy to my eye!

Why wait.

Last evening, since we are expecting rain this weekend, I took my kids to the “park.” It was actually our local botanical garden, which had a special collection of tree houses built around the grounds. I walked the kids from tree house to tree house and sat in the nearby picnic tables and studiously ignored them.

Because of your idea here, my 5 year old daughter got stuck on top of three tree houses, too scared to climb back down by herself. I still ignored her until her cries were just too much. I then “helped” her back down the ladders of those three places by making her do all the work and me just being behind her, talking her through the process. The last several tree houses had similar ladders, and by the fourth one, she didn’t cry and didn’t need my help anymore.

So I blame YOU for my daughter overcoming her fear of climbing down a ladder.

My 6 year old son got into quite a few arguements with his 5 year old sister, who wanted to shadow him around the entire time. In the process he stepped on her fingers twice, pushed her down once, and generally ran away from her at top speed more times than could be counted. But when another boy pushed her down, my son told him to cut it out and leave little girls alone.

So I blame YOU for my son protecting his sister in my “absence.”

We eventually made our way to the Butterfly House, where they wouldn’t leave my side as I showed them various flowers (daughter LOVED the colors), turtles, fish, honey bees, box turtles, snakes, lizards and the butterflies. I watched as a butterfly landed on my daughters face, the look of sheer terror in her eyes as a BUG crawled on her cheek, and her self control as she did NOT swat at it. I asked her why, and she said I’d told them not to hurt the butterflies.

So I blame YOU on for my children listening to me and learning to overcome fear for something kind.

I then turned them loose in the “playground” which was a collection of rocks in a gravel yard. Some of the rocks had water bubbling out of them. I walked away, sat under a beautiful tree, and read a book. I have no IDEA what they did, but they played with about a half dozen kids who’s parents were helicoptering all over them. When it was time to go and I came back to the play area, collected my kids and started walking off. Every one of those kids came over to tell my children goodbye. And the most helicopter parent there came over to talk to me.

So I blame you for being cornered by a helicopter parent after showing off Free Range Parenting.

She asked me why I left my children alone like that. I told her that I trusted them. She asked wasn’t I worried they’d misbehave, I said no. That they’d get hurt? I said no. I thought that she was hinting at something and I asked if they did misbehave in some reason.

She told me flat out, No they didn’t. In fact, they were the best behaved kids there. They always shared, offered to help the little ones climb on the rocks to play in the water, and helped parents pick up toys as they got ready to leave. She said at first she was worried because they also both ran around like banshees, but exceedingly polite ones. And she said she’d never seen her child have that much fun. How’d I do it?

I told her that I walked away. Then I explained the idea of free range parenting, letting them explore, letting them make mistakes. I gave her your website and told her to look into it. She looked EXCEEDINGLY skeptical, like I’d just told her to cut her child’s hand off, but she couldn’t stop watching my kids having a ball. And my little girl? She rushed over to this young mother’s daughter and hugged her goodbye… then hugged the mother and told her thanks for letting her play.

I don’t think I converted this mother to Free Range, but I think I gave her something to think about.

I blame you for that too.

So before anyone else blames you for something that happens to their children this weekend, let me say thanks for all that you do for mine.

@Eric: Actually, my experience with helicopter-kids is that they have no understanding of risk at all, because they’ve never been exposed to it, so rather than avoiding all situations because they “might” be “dangerous”, they get themselves into stupid situations that *are* potentially dangerous (eg. getting drunk every night and driving, cocktailing drugs that are dangerous enough on there own, going home with people they just met at clubs, etc).

If every possible danger in the world is infinitely scary, there can’t be a difference between walking home on your own and meeting a person you met online in a secluded area. Not saying that one-night stands and meeting people from the internet are always going to end in trouble, but there are fairly obvious precautions you can take, and these overparented new-adults have been prevented from learning them or figuring them out.

@spacefall: that’s true too. Always extremes. But the one common thing is that what they know, is only what there parents show them. If parents don’t educate, kids don’t learn. If parents consistently say no, and don’t give good reason, children grow up rebelling (which end up doing those stupid things you mentioned). If parents are always in constant worry and fear, and explain to their kids the reason, those same kids learn to worry and fear about the same things. Much like physical abuse, drug abuse, alcoholism, these are inherent traits passed on by parents, a vicious cycle. It’s NEVER a good thing for a children to learn the negatives of life. Especially from the ones they are suppose to trust the most. That’s why I always say, it’s very selfish and in considerate of parents to put their children through a life of fear.

Lenore,
Thanks for all you do. The media’s reaction reminds me of a story that we did in our (now defunct) satirical newspaper, Takoma Pork. Our parenting issue featured a story on “Detachment Parenting.” Perhaps this is what the public sees as your parenting philosophy. See “How to Succeed in Parenting Without Really Trying.” http://bit.ly/bpKnTW
Hope you like it.

i don’t know why people would blame you when they could blame george bush instead.

We got your back, Lenore!

Interestingly, I received a notice today from our local PD about an attempted case of “child annoying” (yes, that’s what they called it):

http://www.torranceca.gov/TPD/Documents/100028482childannoying.pdf

The lines that really caught my attention were “The victim intelligently went to several apartments acting as if she was getting help” and “Due to her quick thinking, she was able to keep from getting victimized.” The child is 12-years old and was walking home late from school BY HERSELF. Seems to me that her parents are just the kind of free-rangers Lenore is talking about, and THAT is the kind of child WE should all be trying to raise. This is the kid I’d want my children playing with at the local park tomorrow, so I can go get a cup of coffee or read a book without my worry-o-meter going off.

Media that will not know who to point to when another child tests positive for diabetes, or learns that he has high blood pressure brought on by a sedentary childhood, or dies in a car crash, as 5 or 6 kids do every day.

Conversely, media doesn’t know who to point to in the cases of children who grow up with a strong sense of responsibility and freedom, who avoid the perils of depression and substance abuse at a young age because they have been given freedoms and not routinely trampled upon; the kids who speak up and speak out when they see bullies and wrongdoing – because their parents raised them with respect, autonomy, freedom and trust.

I echo here that you may be a villain (or scapegoat is more like it) to some, but you are a hero to many more. Already children owe some very happy memories to your influence; the ripple effect is wonderful to think on.

Hey, just adding another voice to the “hang in there”s. I think you’re very brave to put yourself in the public eye in this way, and further I think it’s sad and ridiculous that someone should be so pilloried for something so trivial. We have your back, Lenore.

Reading all this reminded me of an article I read in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago, about young employees who were the first generation of college graduates who were raised with the self-esteem-fostering, helicopter-parenting philosophy. Turns out, they’re a bunch of young adults that expect special rewards just for showing up on time every day. That are risk-averse followers who never think outside the box, and never confront any kind of authority. That have no resources for dealing with failure. That cannot accept even the mildest criticism with any kind of equanimity. Oh, boy. I am really glad I didn’t raise my kids like that! Because they are, all five of them, self-sufficent, hard-working adults who can take care of themselves. Lenore, keep up the good work!

Here’s to hopes for a great tomorrow! Don’t let the paranoid parents get you down.

My kids will be at a karate tournament all day, but they go out and play on their own for a couple hours a day most days anyhow. Riding bikes, knocking on the doors of friends’ homes to see who can play, that kind of stuff. Wish I could send them to the park tomorrow too, but the day doesn’t look to be working out that way.

thank you! Keep shouting the message. Your following is growing.

If at some point you want to really open things up and convert this blog into a community site that allows for additional contributors, arranges meet-ups, etc, count me in! I’m guessing that several of the other frequent contributors (Uly, grammonster, et al – I’m talking about you!) would also contribute. It could become the Huffington Post of parenthood.

Kelly — right, it depends on the individual kid. [nod] My parents and other custodial adults thought I was good to run around outside without adult supervision before kindergarten; someone else’s kid might not be up for that at the same age. But it can go the other way just as easily. Saying, “I wouldn’t let my kid play alone in the park at age nine, so nobody else should let their kid go to the park alone at age nine — or younger godforbid!! — or they’re Awful Parents!” is just as asinine.

It just seems to me that a healthy, neurotypical kid even a bit younger than seven should probably be able to handle being outside away from adult supervision, in a reasonably safe neighborhood or park, for at least a little while. If not, then that says more about how the kid was raised than it does about the abilities of kids in general.

Angie

Lenore you are in our thoughts and in our prayersM. There are a lot of people and the numbers are growing who stand with you. You are changing the face of America for the better. “Et the few point the fingers. Truth will win out. Ringht now my grndson is somewher in the playground teaching his friend to ride a bike. Me and his mom are watching a movie in the park.

No matter what happens on Park Day,
it would be nice to compare the stats with other weekend stats… other weekends in parks where parents are/were present, in cars, on bicycles, accidents at and inside homes – all the many categories where accidents and tragedies happen.

There are bound to be categories you can point to that are clearly more perilous.

Oh yeah… and the Polly Klaus thing… Good grief! That was so long ago! I lived about 20 miles from Petalums when that happened, and on that very night my own then-12-year-old sister was also having a sleepover. My mom got a wee bit freaked out (valid, as she’s had a kid in her care non-custodial-parental abducted, and my youngest brother got stranger abducted from the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park at 5… we did get him back after about 10 hours…) and all the girls slept downstairs in the living room with both brothers parked in front of the doors. Don’t know if anybody remembers this, but the Sonoma Co. sheriffs, I think it was, or the Petaluma cops, or maybe Healdsburg… whatev… actually stopped the guy while he had he in his car. They let him go. She was alive at that point. No interdepartmental communication. Absolutely NO relevance to this AT ALL. Jeezuhs, Mark… really?

Lenore,

No matter what happens your drive to get people to let their children be children is important. That means playing outside, running in packs, and taking chances. No one wants a child to be hurt, kidnapped or killed or a number of other horrible things and it is always terribly sad when it does happen. Yet I think the chance of the horrible happening is small is worth what is going to happen when they turn 18, or even 21 and have NO idea how to function without someone telling them what to do.

Oh, I don’t have anything special to add but THANK YOU, and good luck.

I had a woman insult me once because I had the audacity to read at the park while my 2 year old was in the sandbox 3 feet away.

Bless you.

We’re with ya, Lenore! My children are out and about right now, making plans to go to the park…or whatever–oh, off to the coffee shop for an icecream cone! 🙂 And other than being glad to have your blog and readers on my side, letting them range free is my decision. I’m the parent, after all.

Be strong; you have done the entire country a favor by bringing the free-range kid issue to light. Thank you!

PS I’m not sure about that quote from Polly Klaas’s dad. In Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv, Klaas is quoted as saying he thinks children SHOULD have freedom to roam alone, albeit with a cell phone.

Thank you, Lenore. From a reformed helicopter parent and her strong, competent children. We’re taking a common sense approach, and thanks to you we’re cutting our children slack, teaching them about personal safety, and in reasonable doses, unwinding the apron strings.

Our job as parents is to raise strong, resilient children with common sense….you can’t teach children about the world when you raise them in a bubble. Of course, you can’t throw someone who’s never been in a pool into an ocean and ask them to swim. As our parents did in the 70’s, we’re slowly giving our 5 and 8 year old lessons in personal safety then ….creating safe exploration activities continuously widening the area around our neighborhood that they play in…. We’ve started by sending our children on errands around the neighborhood..building their confidence and deepening their experience with the world.

Our culture has underestimated children for far too long. We’re raising a nation of fearful children with co-dependency issues that I dare say, we will complain about from our nursing home wheelchairs without relent.

Nobody’s saying leave your kids in front of the TV and stuff Twinkies and Ring Dings in their faces. And to say “not one law passed in the name of a child victim would have ‘saved’ the child it is named for,” is just totally uncalled for. Ever hear of an “Amber Alert?” Plenty of kids have benefited by this law and Since she was alive for 2 days before being killed by her kidnapper, I’m pretty sure Amber Hagerman would have had a good chance of being alive today if an Amber Alert had gone into effect at that time. By the way, Amber was 9 at the time of her kidnapping. She and her 5 yr. old brother went for a quick bike ride “just go once around the block,” which turned out to be the parking lot of a local grocery store that had been closed for some time. The neighborhood kids liked to ride down a ramp there. They rode down the ramp and the 5 yr. old rode back home while the 9 yr. old Amber stayed to take one more ride down the ramp. They never saw Amber again, even though a neighbor heard screaming, saw a man hauling little Amber away in a pickup truck and called 911 right away. It took 8 minutes from the time the kids had left for a quick “once around the block” until that 911 call. Here is a quote from Amber’s Grandmother. “That was it,” she said. “Eight minute — eight minutes from the time she rode away on her bicycle until that man called 911. People have to know that this is how fast these things can happen.” http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/famous/amber_hagerman/1_index.html.
I truly hope nothing happens to any of these kids because of this “leave your kids (7 or 8 yrs. old) at the park alone” day. And I don’t think that taking your kids to the park and sitting nearby is “helicoptering” over them. You’re there while they are playing to keep them safe so if they fall off the jungle gym and do hurt themselves, or if something else happens they are safe. What’s wrong with that? And by the way, Amber’s mom used to ride on the same streets when she was little too. Sorry people, kids ARE in a more dangerous world today that when we were young. And SgtMom — there is a great chance Amber would be alive today if the law in her name had been enacted at the time. Other kids would be here too if the laws they were named for had been enacted at the time.
Also, I was careful of my kids when they were young. I went to the park with them, they went to the corner store with their older brother, not by themselves until they got older. I was careful. The three of them are grown, independent, responsible adults. They show up for work on time every day and don’t expect any special rewards (beckys) and can think outside the box and take care of themselves. They’ve all traveled out of the country, together and by themselves (2 girls — 1 boy) And one of them, that’s what she loves to do — travel by herself. A lot. Scares me when she does, but I’m used to it now. I’m very proud of all of them. Lenore, I still think your’re crazy. I hope these parents don’t think “WOW, nothing happened to my kid on the 22nd, so I’ll let them run around all day every day @ 7 or 8 or even 9. Cause then, something eventually will happen that didn’t need to.

Katie – may I point out to you that the Amber Alert is not a ‘law’. It is a emergency response system that, just as is the case of sex offences, are crimes comitted mostly by family or aquaintences.

Megan’s law, the Adam Walsh Act, Jessica’s law, Chelsea’s law Somer’s law Jacob Wetterling Act Dru’s law have not verifiably saved one single child or made things even slightly safer. We are all scareder than ever!

These laws have verifiably lead to the murders of those on registries, family members of those on registries, and innocent people mistaken for those on registries. We are cutting school budgets drastically while pouring money into enforcing laws that -according to the numbers- have not altered these crimes at all.

I was utterly terrified to leave my children in daycare because of the McMartin preschool brou haha back in the day. It’s embarassing now to admit how manipulated and foolish I was to believe such a story – and all the other day care hoaxes that exploded in that era.

Maybe your children weren’t maimed of killed in a car accident because of your protectiveness – or maybe it simply wasn’t their fate. My husband wasn’t killed while serving in Viet Nam – but 54,000 others were. He gives credit to God, not his over-protective mother.

Bad things happen to good people all the time, Katie. No matter how careful or protective you are. I think you may be taking more credit than is your due.

~ my sons 2 most serious injuries (and I do mean serious — level 2 concussion and a split open forehead that required 19 stitches) required with adults *RIGHT* there.~

Oops that should have read – my sons 2 most serious injuries (and I do mean serious – level 2 concussion and a split open forehead that required 19 stitches) happened with adults *RIGHT* there.

Nobody is objecting to Amber Alerts. And in fact, working as I do at the place that issues the Amber Alerts for our state, I can tell you that Amber Alerts are NOT to be used for family abductions unless the child is in danger from that family member. There are specific criteria that must be applied before an Amber Alert is issued and if the situation doesn’t meet the criteria, no alert.

This is specifically so that the urgency of an Amber Alert is not diluted. If other areas disregard the criteria, or find a way to tweak the facts to make it seem like the child is in danger, it is diluted. Law enforcement and citizens should not have to be brought into family disputes where no one is in danger, and every time they are, an Amber Alert means that much less.

Hi there,

I just found your blog and have to say we are two birds of a feather, just with different target audiences. I’m a Canadian living in South Africa and I am blogging about the destructive fear of crime that is wracking this country. I have had insane responses to some of the articles about fear and crime – I could not post many of the comments as they were abusive and racist. Anyhow, I love what you do and am putting you on my blogroll. Come have a peek when you have some time!

Cheers,

Di

Because my granddaughter was over this past weekend, we were watching an episode of “Little Bill” on Nick Jr., in which Little Bill and his siblings went to the park with their great-grandmother, played on swings, a jungle gym, and on the basketball court, all while great-grandma sat on a bench reading a book. All she said was, “stay where I can see you.” Little Bill climbed the jungle gym, got scared, and was rescued by his older brother, with the great-grandma nowhere in the scene, just occasionally calling “is everything OK?” only to be reassured that it was. Which it was. It made me kind of nostalgic, because now, in the real, paranoid world we in which we live, some nosey-parker mom would call the cops, and great-grandma would be hauled away in handcuffs and the kids would be taken to the police station to call their parents!

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