Mariana Brussoni is an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia in public health and pediatrics, and lead author of a major report on the health benefits of “risky” play. The study determined what Free-Rangers feel in their (once in a while broken) bones: Too much supervision and safe-to-the-point-of-stultifying play spaces prevent kids from getting the kind of exercise and life skills they need.
Her study appears at the same time as Canada’s ParticipACTION report, which states: “Access to active play in nature and outdoor — with its risk — is essential for healthy child development. We recommend increasing children’s opportunities for self-directed play outdoors in all setting — at home, at school, in child care, the community and nature.” The takeaway? We are making our kids too safe to succeed.
Here’s an excerpt from the excellent interview Maclean’s magazine did with Brussoni:
Q: Your research reviewed 18 studies that examined “play where children can disappear [or] get lost, play at great heights, and rough-and-tumble play.” I picture helicopter parents squirming in agony as I say this. Why did we develop this parental paranoia?
A: We have this growing movement to what I call anxiety-based caregiving—caregiving where decisions about childhood and what children need are made based on anxiety, rather than stepping back a bit and thinking about what might be best for child development. You’re in a playground and you hear, “Be careful!” “Get down!” “Watch out!” Those are things that are based on anxiety, not on stepping back and thinking: What does the child hear when you’re saying those things? What the child hears is: “The world is a dangerous place. You don’t trust me to navigate that world. I need you to take care of me; I can’t be independent myself.”
Q: Are those fears legitimate? Are more kids losing eyes, breaking backs, being scooped by strangers?
A: As an injury-prevention researcher, I know the data. Kids have never been safer than they are right now. When I talk to parents, they are afraid of injuries in general, but there are two things that overwhelm them. One is kidnapping—”stranger danger.” The other is motor vehicles, their child being hit by a car. Kidnappings are so rare, it’s really hard to get statistics on them. The last statistics I was able to find were from a report from the RCMP looking at kidnappings in 2000-01. Kidnappings happen, but kids are being kidnapped by people they know. In that two-year period, there was only one instance of a child getting kidnapped by a stranger. It works out to a rate of one in 14 million. The likelihood is very small. Parents are right to be afraid of motor vehicles; they are the leading cause of death for children. But what parents don’t realize is that it’s kids in cars, not kids outside of cars.
Q: So kids being driven to piano practice, as opposed to kids running across the street?
A: Exactly. Pedestrian injuries happen, but it’s eight times more common for a child to actually get seriously injured in a car than outside of it. Parents, in an effort to keep children safe, are driving them around from one supervised activity to another, not realizing that they’re actually putting them in more danger that way.
Q: What do parents say about your research? Are you considered subversive?
A: With parents, I can tell them there’s a one-in-14-million-chance that their kids will get kidnapped. I can tell them their kids are more likely to get hit in a car than out of it, and it has very little impact. What influences parents is the research showing how a lack of ability to take risks affects their child’s development, health and well-being.
Q: Let’s explore that. What are the benefits?
A: The studies showed that physical activity increased, while sedentary behaviour decreased. Social health and behaviour increased, and, what’s also important, there were no adverse effects in engaging in risky outdoor play.
Q: They also found benefits I wouldn’t have expected: conflict resolution, even negotiating decisions about substance abuse and sexual behaviour. How are they linked to risky outdoor play?
A: In supervised activities, there’s somebody else guiding the activities; they don’t have to set the goals for what they want to do and how they want to engage in it. When they’re out in the neighbourhood, they’re deciding, “Okay, let’s build a fort. Let’s play prisoner. Let’s play capture the flag.” They’re negotiating back and forth to decide what the rules will be, how it’s going to work, who’s going to do what. There’s a lot more opportunity to develop those social skills.
Expecting kids to know how to make wise decisions and look after themselves when we limit their opportunities to do that makes about as much sense as expecting them to know how to drive safely without ever letting them practice. – L.
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70 Comments
1 in 14 million. Is it even worth working out as a percentage? All the paranoid moms are going to say “But if that one is your child how will you feel?” They never look at all the growth, fun, friends and happiness that their kids miss out on, because of mom’s fear that their kid will be that one in 14 million.
Even though parents can understand the statistical difference between in car injuries and pedestrian injuries, they have this pipe dream that when their kid is in the car with them, that the parent is in total control. Fantasy at its best.
I don’t care how much an activity scares the parents. It could terrify them. That is irrelevant. They have no right to pass on their fears to their kids. As a parent you have to swallow your own fear, keep your fears to yourself, and let the little ones go.
Excellent!
The two times I’ve nearly been struck by a vehicle with children in a stroller (while in a crosswalk) was by parents driving their children to school. We’d all be safer if more kids were out walking & exploring.
I really like that last point, about how negotiation and problem-solving are learned through free play. I didn’t even think of it now, but it makes total sense. For example:
CHILDHOOD: “Let’s play kickball. Jack’s little sister, Jill, is only five, and the rest of us are eight, so when Jill kicks, the pitcher has to move three big steps closer to her, okay?”
EARLY ADOLESCENCE: “No, I’m not trading my Rocket Richard card for your Sidney Crosby. Rocket Richard is dead, and there won’t be any more cards of him. Besides, I also have Henri Richard, and I don’t want to break up the set. You can choose from any one of these other cards here.”
LATER ADOLESCENCE: “No, Johnny, you can’t touch me under my shirt; it’s only our third date. On top is fine, but not underneath until I say so.”
COLLEGIATE YEARS: “I’ll go to the party with you, but I don’t want to drink, because I have to drive home. If you pressure me, I’m leaving, and you’ll have to find another ride.”
ADULTHOOD: “I like this house, but the asking price is a little high. Throw in appliances, and we’ll talk.”
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, the problem with bubble-wrapping kids and denying them free, unsupervised play, and autonomy to make simple decisions in childhood, is that the adults still expect kids to be able to negotiate more complicated situations when they’re older, with no prior practice. So, they shelter kids until adulthood, and then wonder why they end up getting pregnant, driving drunk, and making other terrible life decisions. The problem with THAT is, though, when people debate whether or not to send their elementary-school-aged children out to play (or whatever) without an adult, they only see RIGHT NOW. They only see “Jack and Jill will be 100% safe RIGHT NOW if I keep them inside.” They don’t see the skills that they might learn, or the fun that they might have, because it’s not like signing them up for an organized activity where the agenda is outlined in advance, and progress is marked by badges, or belts, or recitals. The truth is, you might send Jack and Jill outside to play today, or tomorrow, and they won’t learn anything they didn’t know before, but they might have a major breakthrough (athletic, social, or otherwise) a week from Tuesday. You really never know, and a lot of adults just aren’t okay with not knowing, because they want to see the kind of step-by-step achievement that they can track and put on their children’s college applications.
The first link to the original paper seems to be dead, is there an alternate link?
in other words the so called bad parents who let their kids play outside without them aren’t bad parents. they are good parents. the bad ones are the helicopter parents who can’t trust their kids to know how to ask for help if they should need it. and of course the idiots who call 911 over kids playing.
“Let’s play kickball. Jack’s little sister, Jill, is only five, and the rest of us are eight, so when Jill kicks, the pitcher has to move three big steps closer to her, okay?”
Some months ago I was at a family gathering and talking to a young (high-schooler) distant relative (2nd cousin once removed, I think) who couldn’t understand how in my day we could play pickup basketball games with no supervision, and call our own fouls.
“But what if someone just decided to cheat and fouls all the time?” he asked.
“Well, we wouldn’t play with that guy,” I said.
He said that was “exclusion” and therefore “a form of” bullying.
>>Some months ago I was at a family gathering and talking to a young (high-schooler) distant relative (2nd cousin once removed, I think) who couldn’t understand how in my day we could play pickup basketball games with no supervision, and call our own fouls.
“But what if someone just decided to cheat and fouls all the time?” he asked.
“Well, we wouldn’t play with that guy,” I said.
He said that was “exclusion” and therefore “a form of” bullying.<<
See, BL, I don't think it is–it's just that, some things in life have to have some kind of structure to work properly. In basketball, there are a set of rules that everyone agrees on. Don't ask me to explain them, because I'm not a sports person, but my point is, they always stay the same to make the game fair for everyone, barring extenuating circumstances that can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Life has rules as well–for example, we drive on the road, and walk on the sidewalk. If someone were to drive on the sidewalk, they'd lose their driver's license, and if someone were to attempt to walk on the road in traffic, they'd get honked and cursed at at best, and flattened at worst. So, is it bullying to "exclude" someone from driving if they don't follow the rules of the road, or do the rules of "bullying" and "exclusion" magically vanish at the age of eighteen? I see it as useful information: "I want to play basketball with BL. BL doesn't like it when people cheat. Therefore, I'll play the game honestly."
If I understand this argument correctly, it is that kids that are overly-sheltered from making mistakes when they are younger never learn to develop good decision-making skills that they need when they get older and have to start making important decisions. This is not quite the same as saying giving them unlimited access to “risky” activities will make them better at it.
Small children are simply not yet aware of the risks attached to what they do, and need supervision. Infants go through a stage of “I wonder what that tastes like?”, they need to be kept away from poisonous things. Toddlers are eager to explore the world with their new-found mobility and agility, but swimming pools may be too much for them to handle, and automobile traffic definitely is.
You want your child, upon reaching adulthood, to be capable of functioning as an adult. This means fully able to assess risk (and reward). Giving them opportunity to practice is part of the learning process, but it’s only part. Guided practice is also part of it. Toddlers learn that busy streets are not good for exploring on foot, but yards and parks are. How does this happen? The parent substitutes his or her own judgment for the child’s when the child has made a poor choice. (There’s a reason one of the first words a child learns to say is “no!”)
The challenge, then, is determining WHEN a child no longer needs you to substitute your judgment for theirs. This is a constant process. Children who run may fall down. The usual result of falling down is… having to get back up. In some cases, a skinned knee. So, we take our young children to places where they can run on grass. By the time they reach school age, they can make fairly solid risk-assessment of running vs. walking… There is, or should be, a transition from “don’t run here” (for places where running is inappropriate, obviously) to a strategy of pointing out hazards and relying on the child to understand that the hazard may mean running is inappropriate, to just relying on the child’s ability to locate and identify the hazards themselves (although, even for adults, sometimes hazard identification is appropriate.)
You need to let children enounter challenges, so they can learn to overcome them. But you have to make sure they’re equipped to handle the challenges before they reach them. Sometimes that means overriding a child’s judgment with your own, superior judgment. (No, busy streets are not for walking around in, no, sandstone cliffs are not good for walking up to the edge, no, bleach is not good for drinking.)
Of course, all of this presupposes that the parents’ judgment actually IS better. In some cases, it may not be.
Wow, that ParticipACTION Position Paper is something else. Canada is officially Free Range now!
Unfortunately, I live in an area where my child has no real place to run around freely other than the backyard. Ironically, this is the most rural place I’ve ever lived, it’s just that our house is on the only street going in and out so we get people flying up and down it, there’s a church across the street, and there are no shoulders or sidewalks along this road, which is very curvy close to our house. A little ways down is a four-lane highway. The next street over from us is a dead-end. I feel like she’d be much better served if we lived in an actual neighborhood where she could go around and explore, but we’re not in the financial place to move right now. I WANT to be a free-range parent, it’s just kind of hard sometimes. I am a guilty person by nature and I have a lot of guilt that my husband and I didn’t plan ahead better when we bought this house. I worry that I’m depriving my daughter of what she should have.
“We have this growing movement to what I call anxiety-based caregiving—caregiving where decisions about childhood and what children need are made based on anxiety, rather than stepping back a bit and thinking about what might be best for child development.”
Kids are remarkably good at working out minor disputes without involving adults. When the adults get involved, they look to formalize free play and take away basic child decisions with adult rules to make things fair and safe. And boring.
Kids are natural risk takers. Take away one risk, they will replace it with another. Don’t let them play in the neighborhood with other children, they will find other children online to socialize with and take risks with.
My son recently transformed our backyard playground set into his ninja warrior training gym, I cringed when I heard him using power tools to mount hand grips to climb the levels. He and his friends are out there daily doing astonishingly risky moves…and they’re really good at it! He has a good head about him on what’s really risky (he left a golf match today when he heard thunder) and as a parent, I hope he continues to make good decisions on personal safety.
I have this large mostly flat yard that I mow with a zero-turn mower. My 7-year old loves it and would ride and steer on my lap. I set up some traffic cones and let him out on his own an he traversed them nearly flawlessly. Since then he is obsessed with driving the mower every time I have it out and I have let him, to my wife’s apprehension. So last night he got into an area of the yard that I had told him to avoid and the eventual mishap that I fully expected would eventually occur happened. He ran the mower through a flower bed, took out a leg of my beloved Weber grill and struck the brick house requiring the replacement of a downspout. In all, very minor damage.
He was very upset. I told him that I didn’t want him near the house for this very reason and that it was important that he follows my instructions even when he doesn’t understand why it is that I give them to him. I put the mower away and told him that he could try again another day.
Now there safety devices on the machine. He does not ride with the blades spinning and if he gets out of the seat the mower shuts off so it is impossible that he could run himself over.
Of course the mishap, pretty much the type of thing that I knew would eventually happen, has my wife convinced that she was right in never wanting him to do it in the first place. I do realize that he is quite young for me to allow him to operate a piece of machinery. The property borders a golf course and has has received some strange looks from some golfers who have seen him operating the mower. Luckily no visits from the police or CFS!
Here’s some video of the little guy driving through the cones: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxbitp8JA_ePRDJPdEdHXy1nMnM/view?usp=sharing
I embrace opportunities to challenge my boys with responsibility, failure and even minor injury (yes, that’s a zip-line in my yard). My wife is fine with failure in most instances, but in this case feels it’s her duty to protect them from an ‘unreasonable’ threat of injury.
I seeking some opinions. Am I being a macho fool in letting him do this, as my wife thinks? Should I give this experiment a rest for a year or two? Should I try to convince my wife that it’s OK or should I cede to her wisdom on this one?
Oddly, I have another son two years older who has shown no interest in driving the mower.
“See, BL, I don’t think it is—it’s just that, some things in life have to have some kind of structure to work properly”
No, I didn’t agree with that. It just seems like a mantra people repeat, with stupid results (such as inability to play self-organized games).
“The two times I’ve nearly been struck by a vehicle with children in a stroller (while in a crosswalk) was by parents driving their children to school.”
In my early adulthood, I used to walk to work. Along the way, there was a T intersection I had to cross. Drivers would pull up to the T, intending to turn right, and immediately turn their attention to the left, looking for an opportunity to pull out into traffic. I would approach from the right, get the light in favor, and have someone try to run be over about once a week because they were looking to the left for cars and totally oblivious to anything approaching from the right.
Emily: You totally nailed those stages of risk/reward evaluation development.
What we have right now are young parents who never moved beyond the “childhood” capacity to evaluate risks, so in their minds, *everything* is a risk.
Andrea,
Call the cops on the drivers. We lived on a nice road, lots of homes, lots of kids, no sidewalks, and unfortunately it was a main connector to the highway. My neighbor and I dropped by our local OPP shop and talked to them about the problem. That those heading to the highway were target fixated and not paying attention to the speed limit and the fact that a lot of kids were around.
They understood and periodically set up radar traps, or just parked their to do paperwork. It didn’t take long at all for the conditions to improve a lot.
James,
You need to stop trying to start a debate that isn’t there. Are you that bored with your life? This expert never mentioned “unlimited access to risky activities”.
“‘See, BL, I don’t think it is—it’s just that, some things in life have to have some kind of structure to work properly’
No, I didn’t agree with that. It just seems like a mantra people repeat, with stupid results (such as inability to play self-organized games).”
I think you’re confusing two different things. If we’re going to play basketball, we both need an understanding of what that means. This doesn’t mean that the rules are immutable… we could say, that, instead of dribbling, a player can take three steps with the ball before they have to pass or shoot, for example, and our game isn’t quite basketball, but it can be a workable game. But if, to substitute a card-game metaphor instead, if one player is playing poker, and the other is playing rummy, there’s not going to be much satisfaction with the results. And if one is playing poker, where a flush beats a straight, and the other is playing poker, where a straight beats a flush, the game is not going to proceed without problems.
“But what if someone just decided to cheat and fouls all the time?” he asked.
“Well, we wouldn’t play with that guy,” I said.
He said that was “exclusion” and therefore “a form of” bullying.
What are kids learning these days? That intolerance of other’s poor behavior is a bad thing? How sad.
Re parents driving their kids to school: http://tinyurl.com/qcs3jx9 (Just wait until you see the distance…)
@James: Sounds like bad infrastructure.
I once saw another blog of a woman who was always letting her kids take risks. Her example of one blog was hee kids’ hobby of cliff diving at the beach. One day her kids too some younger kids to cliff dive. The weather was iffy as was the water, but just as she was about to go tell the kids no, she found them on the way back. They had not dived, saying it was way too dangerous at this time. These risk-taking kids had the knowledge and experience to judge a situation as too dangerous for themselves.
“I seeking some opinions. Am I being a macho fool in letting him do this, as my wife thinks? Should I give this experiment a rest for a year or two? Should I try to convince my wife that it’s OK or should I cede to her wisdom on this one?”
Odds are, you’re both right, but you’re working from different sets of assumptions. The fact that your child had an accident suggests that he might not be ready to drive around unsupervised. On the other hand, he’s seeking out the challenge, and from your account has largely (though not completely) mastered it. As a guess, your wife is imagining a grisly scene involving the cutting blades and your son’s soft, tender flesh (not likely, if the safety equipment is well-maintained). Once you get that picture out of her head, her objections probably subside.
Sounds like he needs more practice under your watchful gaze. As you watch him, does he need your help to decide what to do? When the answer is consistently “no”, you can start letting him do things like get it out, put it away, and the like. I think 7 is way too young to be operating the blades, but just moving the thing around like a big go-kart is within the range of things a 7-year-old can learn to do.
“What are kids learning these days? That intolerance of other’s poor behavior is a bad thing? How sad.”
Just bad logic.
That bullying can take the form of exclusion doesn’t imply that exclusion is bullying.
Roger you did right by your son. I don’t care what your wife thinks 🙂
Perhaps after running into things you could have started asking “what happened?” “I ran into the house” “Ok, why?” “because I was going too fast and took the turn too sharp and there wasn’t enough room to swing around”. “Good. Now do you see why I didn’t want you in there with the mower?”
(Assumption is you didn’t do that)
An exchange like that would have let you gauage his understanding of why it went bad. If he can tell you that, he’s capable of making a judgment call. This time he was on the wrong side of it; next time it’ll click and he’ll come out good.
My opinion as a male who’s had ample opportunities to learn from his mistakes (how else do you get to be old and wise?)
>>You need to let children enounter challenges, so they can learn to overcome them. But you have to make sure they’re equipped to handle the challenges before they reach them. Sometimes that means overriding a child’s judgment with your own, superior judgment. (No, busy streets are not for walking around in, no, sandstone cliffs are not good for walking up to the edge, no, bleach is not good for drinking.)
Of course, all of this presupposes that the parents’ judgment actually IS better. In some cases, it may not be.<<
You're right, Roger, but there's a world of difference between preventing your toddler from drinking bleach, and preventing your school-aged child from playing outside (in a safe place, like in your yard or in a park) without adult supervision. When I was a baby, my parents locked up the poisonous items, or put them on high shelves, and they put plastic plugs in the electrical sockets, but later, when I was old enough to be reasoned with (not sure how old, but definitely before kindergarten), they taught me that sticking my finger in a socket, or anything else that isn't meant to be plugged in, could electrocute me. They also taught me to identify the hazard symbols, for poison, flammable, explosive, corrosive, et cetera, and told me very clearly what each of them meant. Playing outside without an adult was allowed beginning at about the same age (maybe three or four or so), and my parents were on the overprotective side when it came to leaving the property, but I was definitely riding my bike around the block at seven, walking to and from school at eight or nine, taking the bus across town to the YMCA at twelve, and conducting my own extra-curricular and social life (wherever it took me) in high school. When it came time for university, my parents actually pushed me to enroll in a school in the next province over (8-9 hours away by car, and even more by bus), because they thought it was a better fit for me than any of the options closer to home. They were okay with letting me go further, because I'd worked up to that.
Today, I'm a yoga instructor, and I include advanced poses in my classes, but yoga includes a lot of modifications, so most poses have two or three options, and some have more. So, I'll give an advanced pose, but give every modification up to it, and I'll watch, coach, and even physically spot people who are attempting advanced poses for the first time. Some people don't like this approach–the woman who certified me in yoga at the YMCA, wants me to only teach the beginner poses, but I don't do that. Besides the fact that it would make the class boring for people capable of more, I also think it insults people's intelligence. After all, it's safer for someone to attempt an advanced pose in a yoga class with an instructor there, than on their own from a picture in a magazine or a video on the Internet. Likewise, a child who's kept under lock and key, is more than likely going to rebel and get into trouble for lack of coping skills, and might not feel safe going to a parent for help, because they're afraid that that parent is going to be angry that they broke the rules.
“@James: Sounds like bad infrastructure.”
How so?
(The only improvement to infrastructure that I can see that would improve things would be a pedestrian overpass, and even that approach has drawbacks, because it would impose a height limit on traffic.)
>>See, BL, I don’t think it is—it’s just that, some things in life have to have some kind of structure to work properly. In basketball, there are a set of rules that everyone agrees on. Don’t ask me to explain them, because I’m not a sports person, but my point is, they always stay the same to make the game fair for everyone, barring extenuating circumstances that can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Life has rules as well—for example, we drive on the road, and walk on the sidewalk. If someone were to drive on the sidewalk, they’d lose their driver’s license, and if someone were to attempt to walk on the road in traffic, they’d get honked and cursed at at best, and flattened at worst. So, is it bullying to “exclude” someone from driving if they don’t follow the rules of the road, or do the rules of “bullying” and “exclusion” magically vanish at the age of eighteen? I see it as useful information: “I want to play basketball with BL. BL doesn’t like it when people cheat. Therefore, I’ll play the game honestly.”<<
Emily, I'm currently reading "Free to Learn" after seeing it mentioned time and time again on this blog. In this, the author demonstrates how in a play situation, most kids will naturally learn to balance their needs with the needs of others for the sake of the game. There are rules to these freeplay games. Any kid playing a game with other kids will learn to go along with the rules or seek to compromise for different rules in order. So, yeah, the rules might change or be different from official sports rules, but any kid who really wants to play is going to work with, or in your words "play the game honestly". I completely agree: it's not bullying if the kid chooses not to participate in the social order of the game.
I don’t think BL is approving of this concept – merely describing an encounter with a high school relative who has had this view drummed into him that exclusion equals bullying. I can attest to schools doing this now too. At my son’s elementary school there was a kid who used to scream into people’s ears as they were playing a game – just to get a rise out of people. Of course he only did it when no adult was around to see. So when my son and the other kids told him to get lost, he went running to the yard duty people and started crying (he was in fifth grade by the way!) that he’d been excluded from the game. I got a call from the principal and let him know what I thought of this policy. It did end up backfiring on the kid, of course, as no one wanted to be around him unless they were forced to.
In my town, some high school kids played a pick up game of flag football or soccer one Sunday afternoon at the high school field (not the football field, just a big open field). Some dickhead neighbor actually called the cops on them! It made the local paper and I was gratified to see the responses from people who were outraged that kids playing a game meant somebody had to call the cops!
“when I was old enough to be reasoned with (not sure how old, but definitely before kindergarten), they taught me that sticking my finger in a socket, or anything else that isn’t meant to be plugged in, could electrocute me. They also taught me to identify the hazard symbols, for poison, flammable, explosive, corrosive, et cetera, and told me very clearly what each of them meant.”
In other words, they make sure you had the tools you needed to form good decisions, before allowing you to make those decisions for yourself.
“Likewise, a child who’s kept under lock and key, is more than likely going to rebel and get into trouble for lack of coping skills, and might not feel safe going to a parent for help, because they’re afraid that that parent is going to be angry that they broke the rules.”
In other words, these hypothetical parents haven’t prepared their hypothetical child to make good decisions (including when to ask for help).
My kids have been running the riding mower to cut the grass from the time they were tall enough to operate it comfortably. I set the speed, and they were limited to doing the large open areas. I would take care of the tight areas, and outer limits of our property. My oldest started when she was 9, the youngest 7. My oldest is a shorty.
My youngest daughter has always been mechanically inclined, and from the age of 6 would work on vehicles with me, from the age of 8 she would come to work with me on Saturdays. And my work is not for the nervous. She learned about safety procedures, safety equipment and teamwork.
“With parents, I can tell them there’s a one-in-14-million-chance that their kids will get kidnapped. I can tell them their kids are more likely to get hit in a car than out of it, and it has very little impact. What influences parents is the research showing how a lack of ability to take risks affects their child’s development, health and well-being.”
I think this paragraph sums it all up. The best way to spread Free Range is to show parents the bigger picture – what children gain through range freedom.
“I don’t think BL is approving of this concept — merely describing an encounter with a high school relative who has had this view drummed into him that exclusion equals bullying. I can attest to schools doing this now too.”
Not sure why there was confusion, but this is indeed exactly what I meant.
I agree about the long-term benefits of unsupervised play, but I also think too much supervision can make kids less safe in the short term. When kids think a grown-up is in charge, they’re much less likely to exercise their own judgment.
E.g., when my son (admittedly a naturally cautious soul) was first crawling, I never had to worry about gating off the stairs, because his assessment of them was that they were scary and dangerous. Likewise, when I took him to the playground, I didn’t follow him around or hover, even when he was just a year old, because he would never, ever climb up anything he wasn’t sure he could get down.
Until my mother-in-law visited and purposely TAUGHT him to climb up the stairs (without teaching him to climb down!) and how to climb up several pieces of playground equipment he was in no way ready to handle. Then, since a grown-up had told him it was okay, suddenly I could no longer trust his judgment and had to watch him like a hawk until I succeeded to teach him to climb down safely.
In fact, the only time my son ever actually fell down the stairs was when an adult was right next to him, helping him. I’ve heard the same thing from a lot of other parents – that the worst accidents often happen right next to an adult.
@James Pollock: “How so? (The only improvement to infrastructure that I can see that would improve things would be a pedestrian overpass, and even that approach has drawbacks, because it would impose a height limit on traffic.)”
The issue with the T-intersection you describe is that gives drivers 2 different spots which need particular attention at the same time. The infrastructure might be improved by changing one of these attention spots so that drivers only need to focus on one at a time.
As example, by moving the pedestrian crossing far from the T intersection drivers will have time to focus back to where they are going after they entered the crossing. Another option could be a roundabout, which means the pedestrian crossing would be either before entering it or after leaving it.
Of course it’s not always easy to implement such improvements, but typically most “dangerous” situations can be made safer with this strategy.
BL:
So, would it also be bullying if they were playing a supervised game and they fouled out?
If someone fouls too much, they pay the price – not forever, but until they are ready to play by the rules. Supervised or not.
Please stop engaging the troll.
@Roger- Kids will learn from their mistakes. And we get great stories.
Let him mow the lawn! You sound like a great dad.
My personal anxiety-inducing situation is letting the youngest daughter bike alone. Her brother was fine at her age so I’m thinking it’s because she’s a girl. A cute one. She’s always biked with a sibling/friend/parent but this year her swim practice time is different than her siblings and all bike alone at different times.
It’s not a far ride but there’s a lot of drop-off and pick-up traffic around the pool. Still, I worry like crazy and wonder at times if I’m doing the wrong thing, other parents will think I’m lazy, and it would be so much easier to just drive her but she loves to bike.
We had a swim meet last night and I’m amazed at how many swimmers she knows from biking *alone*. While I was worrying, she was making new friends, young and old. One of her friends is a fellow 3rd grader who will be in her class next year and bikes to practice also. She races him home. He makes fun of her girly bike. She beats him in every race with that girly bike. Another friend is the teenage babysitter of a girl in her age group who stays at practice and has helped her get her cap on. She’s also a referee in the outdoor basketball league and stayed after the game to shoot a few baskets with her.
Socializing, on their own terms, is so healthy for kids. Who am I to stop her.
“As example, by moving the pedestrian crossing far from the T intersection drivers will have time to focus back to where they are going after they entered the crossing.”
Moving the crosswalk away from the stoplight seems counterproductive.
“Another option could be a roundabout, which means the pedestrian crossing would be either before entering it or after leaving it.”
Historically, roundabouts have not been favored in the U.S. In this case, they take up considerable ground that is not available where this intersection is located.
The core problem is that there aren’t many people out walking in the suburbs during rush-hour, and therefore nobody’s looking out for them.
KB –
BL was quoting someone – that’s why he/she used quotation marks. To attribute the comments his or her relative made to BL is inaccurate.
Brusonni should have just emphasized on how these very same parents/adults (including the interviewer) probably did exactly the same things growing up. How they dealt with various situations, and how they turned out. If it worked for them, it will work for their kids. Everything she mentioned from her research, and all the benefits, have always been that way. But in an age of paranoia, these re-researches help in quelling, and hopefully, putting some people’s minds at ease. And helping them get over their self-imposed fears. Like giving them a choice of two fears. 1. Fear for their kids remotely getting hurt or abducted. Or 2. Fear of their kids, with more certainty, of emotional damage, and hindered mental and physical well-being for their future. Seems fear is the driving factor for many. Which one would they fear most? Then help them focus on working on that fear, turning it into something more positive. That is BEST for the KIDS, not what makes US feel better.
“1. Fear for their kids remotely getting hurt or abducted. Or 2. Fear of their kids, with more certainty, of emotional damage, and hindered mental and physical well-being for their future. Seems fear is the driving factor for many. Which one would they fear most?”
Fear causes people to be poor at risk-assessment. Fear causes us to focus on the worst outcome, rather than the most likely. We need to listen to our fears, then put them away and make rational decisions. Less fear, not different fear, is what we need.
@lollipoplover: What many of these paranoid parents and adults are forgetting, is that nature has ingrained in all of us the will to survive, and that it takes practice to hone these skills. Just like in sports, to get better and better at something, we need to keep practicing and practicing, that things eventually become second nature. Instincts. Where the child already knows the right thing to do without even thinking about it. That is the main goal of every parent (at least it should be in this generation). To rear a child to become successful adults in all facets of life. Be it living on their own, cooking, cleaning, relationships, work, finances. By college, they should be well on their way into “mastering” these skills. But the way things look, they are way behind the curve of past generations of children. But hey, the parents feel better about themselves. lol Maybe that’s really all that matters for them.
@James Pollack: In another era, I would totally agree with you. But in this generation, most people can’t distinguish different types of fears, they don’t think. Fear is fear to them. You literally have to hold their hand, guide them, and assure that everything will be ok. Not the kids, the adults. lol Even then, you still might get through, because their fear overrides their sense of reason.
Giving the right kind of push, fear is a very powerful motivator. When you have only one bad choice, it’s easy to run away from it. You avoid it. When given 2 tough choices (there are no others). You force them to actually start thinking which is best. You force them to use common sense and reason. “If I do this, this will happen. But if I do THIS, THIS will happen. Which is more destructive for my child?” You are still using the same “fear for their children”, but now your making them think about pros and cons of both. And hopefully, eventually, whatever they learned to become fearful, they can unlearn it by actually going through the steps, rather than assuming “what ifs”. Going through the steps, is like hands-on. They are seeing things with their very own eyes, with their own kids. Rather than just reading or hearing about them, about other people’s kids.
BL, I wasn’t confused; I was replying to what your teenaged relative said about all exclusion being “bullying.”
“You force them to use common sense and reason.”
You cannot force someone to use common sense and reason, or either one individually.
“‘If I do this, this will happen. But if I do THIS, THIS will happen. Which is more destructive for my child?’ You are still using the same “fear for their children”, but now your making them think about pros and cons of both.”
People who are afraid are not thinking. At best, they’re reacting, and when they react, they react to the biggest, scariest thing, not the most likely thing.
There are people who will play up your fears, because they stand to gain somehow. There are people who will play up your fears, if they can, because this is their job. The best move is to dismiss the fear, not create other fears and try to play off of them.
To quote from a very bad movie made from a very good book, “Fear is the mind-killer”.
@James Pollock: “Moving the crosswalk away from the stoplight seems counterproductive.”
Sorry, I didn’t understand there were stoplights, but if there are stoplights the issue is likely that “right turn on red” is allowed. “Right turn on red” is very well known as being problematic for pedestrians exactly for the reasons already discussed. You can solve the problem by prohibiting it so that pedestrian can cross either with all traffic stopped or only with traffic allowed from one direction at a time. That way if a driver is turning right into the crosswalk it means that traffic from his left has red and needs to focus only on the turn, not on the incoming cars.
>>Emily: You totally nailed those stages of risk/reward evaluation development.
What we have right now are young parents who never moved beyond the “childhood” capacity to evaluate risks, so in their minds, *everything* is a risk.<<
Thanks, Reziac. Maybe my post could be made into a PSA for Free-Range Kids, and as a surprise twist ending, the homeowner or realtor could be Jill from the kickball game (now grown up, of course), and the buyer could be the player who came up with the "three steps closer" accommodation. Jill will remember that (maybe with a dramatic flashback), she'll throw in the appliances, the other person will buy the house, and everyone out in Viewerland will learn a valuable lesson.
Wondering what thoughts were on the backlash for this campaign which some call “victim blaming”:
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/29514645/new-signs-at-chop-has-everyone-talking
@Roger the Shrubber,
Mowing with a mowing rig on a tractor was one of my husband’s childhood chores, and seeing as it was quit out of date, I don’t think it had the safety features yours did. The blades were definitely turning when he used it. So, I’m not inclined to think you did anything wrong. And I think it perfectly fair for you to try to convince your wife that this is not unsafe.
Just be aware that her sense that this isn’t safe may have as much to do with attitude as the machine itself. A pencil can be dangerous if toyed around with and used foolishly. And I think most moms have seen a kid flap a pencil around near someone’s face. Another possibility is that like my mom and myself she has a stronger reaction to kids making messes they can’t fix then ones they can.
Ask your wife some open ended questions on this and give her a chance to elaborate before you try to answer. If she isn’t familiar with what is really safe and really dangerous with the mower help her get familiar. Make sure in all this your wife and son, can both see that you do value safety, that there are limits to what is acceptable, a point at which you say this may be fun, but this is NOT a toy and it must be treated seriously.
It didn’t sound like you punished your son but some reparation and penalty may be necessary, you may also need to beef up his safety training. Does he know what to do if he accidentally activated the mower blades?
Best of luck. Hopefully in a year or two he will be mowing the lawn for you, not just getting back on the mower.
@Lollipoplover–I just read that article, and I don’t agree that a poster about teaching kids about traffic safety is “victim blaming.” Traffic is a fact of life; and toddlers aren’t easily visible to drivers looking in their rear-view mirrors, so yes, that’s the perfect time to start teaching traffic safety. For a toddler, “traffic safety” would mean “hold hands with an adult in parking lots and when crossing the street.” For a preschooler, you could still enforce hand-holding in parking lots, but start coaching them on how to use crosswalks, recognize Stop signs, et cetera, until the child can talk the adult through the process. From there, you’d teach the child to cross non-busy side streets, then busier streets, and so on, and so forth, within reason–I mean, even an adult wouldn’t risk crossing, say, a six-lane freeway, because real life isn’t like Frogger, where you can start over with a new frog if your first one gets squashed on the road. But, you can’t put ALL the blame and responsibility on drivers, because, to put it bluntly, driving is different from bullying, rape, abuse, or other behaviours that are associated with victim-blaming. Driving is, in itself, a perfectly innocuous and often necessary activity. Drivers and pedestrians have to learn to co-exist safely in the world. Meanwhile, bullying, rape, and abuse are neither innocuous, nor necessary, and if they happen, it’s because someone is exerting power and control over someone else, in the hope of gaining something from it at their expense.
“Wondering what thoughts were on the backlash for this campaign which some call ‘victim blaming’:”
I can’t do much of anything about people who drive like idiots. I can do something about whether or not my child is in their way.
It’s kind of hard for me to see “here’s how to substantially reduce your chances of being a victim” is “victim-blaming”.
In other news, you can substantially reduce the odds of being in a drunk-driving accident by not getting in a car with a driver who’s been drinking.
bsolar,
The actual solution is being a more aware pedestrian. At busy intersections like that, you never just assume you can walk on the light. You have to be aware of cars making turns. Always taught my kids if there is a car waiting to turn, you don’t cross unless you have made eye contact with the driver. That is the only way you know they know you are there.
Even more so at an intersection where you have almost been hit before.
I agree we should teach kids traffic safety and it’s not “victim blaming,” but unfortunately, there are limits to how much we can teach them. For instance, it’s easy to teach a kid to stop and wait for the light before crossing, but hard (or perhaps impossible) to teach a small child to anticipate and deal with drivers who make rights on red without checking for pedestrians. As an adult, I know to make eye contact with the driver and assess his intentions, but how can you teach a 7-year-old to do that? Likewise judging whether a driver who is approaching is far enough away or driving slowly enough to stop – accurately assessing distance and speed are simply not physiologically possible for very young children.
What we can do about drivers who don’t watch for pedestrians, I don’t know. Much fiercer enforcement would probably help, especially against drivers who disregard either marked or unmarked crosswalks. Laws that require stopping for pedestrians at unmarked crosswalks rather than merely yielding (as in some states) are probably preferable because they’re more clear-cut. Also, in my neighborhood, narrowing the streets and widening the sidewalks would help. If it looks like a freeway, drivers are going to drive like it’s a freeway, whatever speed limit you post on a sign.
lollipop,
20lbs of toddler? Really? That ad is a joke. At twenty pounds they are what at the most 2 years old. Now I am all for Free Range Kids, but even I wouldn’t be sending my 2 yr old out to cross streets by themselves.
” Much fiercer enforcement would probably help, especially against drivers who disregard either marked or unmarked crosswalks.”
My state tried this, and had to backtrack. More voters are drivers than are parents of small children.
“Wondering what thoughts were on the backlash for this campaign which some call “victim blaming”:”
I think a lot of people think kids are innocent little idiots.
Note the tweet in the slide show asking saying “Are 20lb kids even old enough to be taught traffic safety?”
Yes some kids will be really hard to teach… I feel for my neighbors. Their boy darted into the road more times than I could count before they succeed in teaching him…. But it would have been madness for them to give up. Now he is safe. Now he can play in the front yard and we know he won’t go into the street.
And not every kid is hard. It just took some consistency, and two good long walks to teach my daughter not to enter the road. And though she still isn’t allowed to cross roads alone (I tell her she needs to get taller than car windows for that) we still have talked about proper crossing procedure since she learned to walk. Several months into her walking I was sleep deprived and trying to cross the street to our house. My toddler planted her feet firm and yanked me back shouting ‘car!’ Sure enough I hadn’t really registered the care was there.
Meanwhile a slightly older boy down the street who was never a darter was kept on a leash for years and I’ve heard grandma recently shout at him “If you open that gate you will DIE!”
Some people just don’t believe in kids. I’m glad I have the knowledgeable kid who kept us both from becoming victims, rather than having a 4 year old I don’t trust in his own front yard.
Things are changing
We have known about this problem for a while. However we didn’t ‘know’ about the problem until now. The facts are coming in. Recognized people with PhD’s are writing books about the dangers of bubble wrapping children. As people change their focus on what’s dangerous, the media follows suit. The bureaucrats also start to change. This is why the charges were dropped against the Meitiv’s
I love her term “anxiety-based caregiving”. It is not fear based. Mind you that anxiety is caused by irrational fears. No different than being afraid of heights or the dark.
Fear is actually supposed to be a good thing. Real fear is a tool. It is a warning, to make us stop, think and prepare. We are supposed to use fear, not let fear manipulate us.
Hi James Pollack – it’s a 4 way stop, no lights. 6 possible car movements. The drivers are not looking for pedestrians. Ex: they see a car whose right of way to make a turn thru the intersection not moving forward and they do not assess why – they gun it. Many drivers today are so worried about shuttling their child from location to location that they endanger other children. They themselves create an environment they don’t trust to send their kids into.
Please don’t imply I’m not being careful about entering a crosswalk with two children in a stroller and one in utero. Please just be a vigilant driver in intersections. I’ll let you get back to quarter backing other commentors now.
“Please don’t imply I’m not being careful about entering a crosswalk with two children in a stroller and one in utero.”
Um, OK. I’ll continue not implying this.
The core problem of pedestrians and motorists was identified some 65 years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk-c5jlk48s
“Many drivers today are so worried about shuttling their child from location to location that they endanger other children.” Anecdotally, this does appear to be true. I walk and bike frequently, and I find most if not all of the oblivious drivers who fail to see me (and would plow through me if I didn’t take evasive action) are women with young kids in the car, ironically.
And a decade ago, the vehicle plowing you over would be a big SUV, because if you’re in an accident, you want the most steel surrounding you!
“And a decade ago, the vehicle plowing you over would be a big SUV, because if you’re in an accident, you want the most steel surrounding you!” Here in Denver, it still would be. That or a pick-up truck.
Here in Ecotopia, it’s probably a Prius now.
Seems like bsolar took over my infrastructure point and said everything I would’ve said. Thanks, bsolar 🙂
So the 19 yr olds on the sex offender lists (who didn’t become Fathers – ie child support slaves or caught STDs) were helicopter parented?
I can’t really figure out how I was parented, but I was allowed lots of freedom – but it was drilled into me that I was responsible and should do the right thing. I avoided trouble.
We actually live in a neighborhood where free play among kids of various ages still happens. They absolutely enforce their own game rules, temporarily exclude kids who throw fits if they lose, and find ways to accommodate smaller kids. Kids climb trees and run around outside after dark, making many safety choices on their own.
What drives my kids crazy is when they go places where ridiculous safety rules are imposed. We recently saw a huge difference in approach to children’s play at two Florida theme parks. At Universal Studios, there is an amazing Jurassic Park playground, with rope bridges and caves to get lost in, complete with fog and dinosaur sounds to creep you out. We had a family game of tag in the pouring rain, making our own choices about how fast we could run on slippery surfaces. The perfect way to blow off steam on an otherwise structured theme park day filled with waiting your turn and following rules. LEGOLAND has a climbing structure that is much smaller but still has plenty of room to run, with ramps, nets, and slides. Except, no running is allowed. They not only have “No running” signs every three feet, but they post an employee to yell at (and physically block if necessary) any child who dares to pick up speed or go down an “up” net. Children were coming back to their parents, announcing that the playground was no fun and they wanted to leave. The employee explained to me that children could slip and scrape their knees or run into a pole. I suggested that scrape knees are not the end of the world and most children can figure out by themselves not to run straight into a pole, but clearly this was company policy.
Most car crashes happen while driving under 25mph within 5 miles from home!
@sexhysteria: That tells you something about how much driving is done within 5 miles from home…