Take Your Kids to the Park...

[JessicaR]

The woman was interviewed on my local news this morning.

I think its a great idea. My kids aren't little anymore though. At 8 and 9 they were already being given certain freedoms to enhance their independence.

 

[nuttylawprofessor]

Family friends have let their 5-year-old run a bit feral in the neighborhood. The child has now had another child cut nice big chunks of hair on more than one occasion. The 5-year-old also has serious impulse control problems. That child could use a little more supervision. There's a difference between helicopter and responsible supervision.

 

[Mickeypooh99]

I'm not going to drive my kids to the park and leave them there, but we live on 11 acres in a rural area. My kids are free to play outside all over our property. My neighbors also use a cow bell to call their children. I just stick my head outside and yell. I have been letting my boys play outside on their own since they were 3 years old. At that age they had to stay in the yard.

The biggest difference between what I was allowed to do, and what I won't allow them is swimming. My parents let us swim without adult supervision early on. I won't allow that until they are a lot older.

 

[kamik86]

I'm answering this with my neices since I don't have kids.

I would definitely let my older two neices do this. I'm not sure if my mom would be ok with it becuase she seemed weird when I said the older two could go off on their own during our trip in October but they will be within a month of their 15th and 16th birthdays and as I pointed out to my mom she let me move 6 hours away into a dorm room while I was still 17.

As for the 8 year old, I wouldn't let her because she doesn't listen to the 15 and 16 year olds and would do something dangerous just because they said not to.

 

[kamik86]

For some reason this computer keeps double posting.... Ignore this one

 

[mjkacmom]

Now that I have my own children, I am more protective. We live in a more congested albeit nice neighborhood. I let them play in our area with the same rule as my mom, they have to be able to hear me if I call for them. I do have a friend though that uses an actual cow bell to ring for her kids!
.

I have a bell attached to my house! When I was growing up, my parents had a large horn - my neighbor had the bell. As for dropping in the park, ds12 and dd13 have permission to go anywhere in town without me, and I would drop off dd7 and dd9 (but not ds7 - I don't trust him) with a cellphone. I can drive to several parks in under 5 minutes. I certainly won't do it on Saturday!

 

[MushyMushy]

I don't know why the response to this has to be one extreme or the other. If we don't allow it, we're helicopters, but if we do, we're free range? And why such a negative connotation for one, but a better one for the other? I just say know your kids, know your neighborhood, be observant but don't hover.

My kids are older now, but I wouldn't have just dropped them off at a park. They were, however, allowed to play outside without my presence and I just checked on them once in a while. They didn't have the same freedom at 7 as I would have given them at 9. Why can't we just use common sense?

 

[Becky2005]

I hadn't heard of it but geez, announcing it like that would make me more likely to NOT do it that day! Talk about advertising it for the weirdos to take advantage of the situation.

I'm not doing it though because it's my son's birthday. LOL!

It will be interesting to see how it all pans out.

 

[Planogirl]

My 17 year old can participate.

Seriously, I think that 7 is a little young but I would have allowed it when he was a bit older. It does depend on the area and the kid as so many have already said.

 

[eliza61]

I think it truly depends on where you live. I grew up in NYC and we went to the park every day by ourselves. I'm a huge proponent of a little free ranging only because I get these kids when they are in the 12th grade and freshmans in college and they can't tie their shoes without getting their parents direction.

My favorite story is a freshman girl literally crying because her paper had a red F on it. AT 19. Her mom came in and said it, demoralized little suzy.

Anyway,
my kids go to the park by themselves all the time. They have to use the buddy system and have cell phones. They must tell me or dh where they are going and who with but we rarely "took" them anywhere after they turned 9, except for places that they needed to be driven to.

 

[disykat]

Where I grew up, there's a small neighborhood park several blocks away. Would I let my kids (if I had kids that age) walk over there? Sure, probably from age 9 with a friend. Where I live now, the closest park is several miles away and a popular place for tourists and homeless teens, as well as families. Would I leave them there at that age? No way.

 

[Pigeon]

Nope. That strikes me as a loony thing to do.

I'm 50 and we weren't dropped off at the park as children. My parents had a brood of kids and were pretty hands off. We played outdoors in the neighborhood all day long in the summer. We could get home or to a friend's house in seconds if we needed help. But we weren't dropped off in public parks.

 

[Crystal0608]

No way in heck would I drop my kids off at the park and they are 8 & 9. They do go to the park about once a week, more in the summer, but myself, my mama, or my dh is watching them.

 

[mykidsand_i]

I think its a great idea. My kids aren't little anymore though. At 8 and 9 they were already being given certain freedoms to enhance their independence.

I don't think it's so much 'their independence' that I would worry about as a crazy person kidnapping or harming them. I live in a small community that was thrown into a tail spin last summer when a child (10) was thrown into the park bathroom and raped before the parents even knew what was going on! This man did it three times in two weeks and was caught...Child Rapists and kidnappers don't usually have an age preferance...at times they don't even have a gender preferance. All it takes is ONE bad person in a town...ONE. I don't care if the town has a population of 100, there is probably 1 creep who lives there!

Now, if the park is fully visible from your home and you can run there, see it and watch your kids as they play, that MAY be a little different.

I can see spots of the park my girls play at, it is across the street from the back yard. There is one yard on the other side of us, and that home blocks a large part of the park view. There is one not so busy street that the girls have to cross to get there. I am not worried about my girls getting across that street, because it's a dead end, no one hardly goes on it. What I do worry about is the 10 seconds it takes for someone to take them with out me even being aware that it happened.

My kids will NEVER stay there by themselves until they are older... they are 6and 8 right now- and NO WAY.

ALSO, our neighbor kids are 'free range' VERY FREE RANGE, to the point that it is actually poorly effecting their lives. The boy is 8 and girl is 10 and once the boy went to the park BY HIMSELF, and the police brought him home because he fell from the top from a climbing structure and had a broken leg. He sat there for about 20 minutes in sheer pain, screeming and crying for help before another mom brought her kids there and found him.

There are just too many things that could go wrong. My time to get things done on my own is worth less than the safety of my kids.

 

[JessicaR]

I agree that it depends on where you live and your comfort level. Anything can happen anywhere at any time. I do not want my children to be fearful based on my fears. I dont mean it isn't my responsibility to keep them safe. They need to learn and practice independence skills. It is my job to equip my children with those skills so they can think for themselves and have the tools to make good choices.

I also would never say that what I believe is right for me and my family is right for anyone else. For me, in this instance based on the question posed, it is all about independence.

 

[2girlsmom]

I would agree that many kids are not independent enough, but I do think it depends drastically on where you are. In my case, to take them to a park requires driving into and halfway across town, as our house is rural. My kids are allowed and encouraged to play outside without me though, we have a big back yard, as do the neighbors (we have about 1/2 acre, the neighbors have 5 acres). They also are allowed to ride their bikes unattended (gravel road). Obviously I am not driving 20 minutes into town to take them to a park and leaving them, this would be silly. But they do plenty unattended where we live, and when in town out to dinner or whatever, I certainly don't feel the need to walk them to the restrooms or that kind of thing; they are old enough to do that without me. I am the first to admit that I am over protective in some ways, for example, I won't let them walk alone to the nearby ice cream shop, about a mile along a busy highway. I think we all have to decide based on where we live and the safety concerns where we can teach independence reasonably and safely.

 

[Mkrop]

Not happening.

Our local park is a huge area with a baseball field, a soccer/lacrosse
field, playground equipment and a small ampitheater.

Two weeks ago on a Sat, with games going on on ALL those fields, a man tried to molest a 12 year old boy in the public restroom. His parents were not far away watching their daughter play lacrosse. Luckily the kid got away before something happened but unforunately so did the creep.

A notice cam home via all the sports leagues to be on the lookout and be careful about children going into the bathrooms at any fields unattended.

I live in suburbia.

Other people can call me any name they want, I am going to do what I feel is best for my kids.

 

[stashbin]

I have a friend who is very into free range parenting. To each his own. I hope that I am able to find a medium between hovering and free range.


I worry more about advertising this particular day.....wouldn't it be like calling the perverts to supper??? Do it, if you must, but letting everyone know that children are going to be unsupervised at a park seems crazy to me.

That's funny!

 

[krcit]

This sort of thing is not about Free Range or Helicopter. It is about the safety of your neighborhood. This is the routine in our small, rural town. There are always kids from about 1st grade and up at the park alone, they walk to school alone or to the library. It's just the way it is. Not too much to worry about. I have no problem letting my child go to the park alone here (she's 8). If I lived in Chicago? Different story completely.
Whatever happened to common sense parenting? Or better yet: if the kid is safe, loved, and taken care of, who cares what type of parenting it is. It must be working for them.

I think this is a really good point. I answered the question based on my neighborhood. It's not a 'bad' neighborhood but it's not Mayberry either

 

[EMom]

A few years ago, a relative of mine was at work and had left her useless unemployed, too good to take the jobs offered to him DH in charge of their 4 kids. Because of what happened next, (among other things) he would become the useless ex-DH.

DH went out for HOURS to do lord knows what. Didn't let the mother know, so she was at work under the assumption all was well at home. The oldest child (12) got cabin fever and decided they should all go out. The four kids ranged from 12 down to a 5-6 y.o. They lived in a "safe" suburban neigborhood. They went to a public outdoor place (I don't want to say where, but a park would be very similar) and played with lots of other kids, most if not all of whom had parents with them.

At some point, the 5-6 y.o. was kidnapped and no one noticed. It seems her screams and fit-throwing were seen as typical of a child who did not want to go home. By some miracle, she was not harmed. The kidnapper lost their nerve and from what the police gathered, it was a person who wanted a child, not a molester. Turns out they had been casing the place for days. They never caught the kidnapper either....no way of knowing if another attempt was made.

Yes, the oldest child took them to this place without permission. But it's the sort of place lots of parents would send a group of kids, ages 6-12, WITH permission, so the lack of permission really is a moot point. Had the mother been there, I promise you, she would have been keeping an eye on the kids, especially the youngest one and the kidnapping would not have taken place. This person waited for days to spot the "right" kid to take. One with no parent in sight, so they could make a clean getaway.

So no, I won't leave my kid at the park. Some of us went yesterday and the moms visited on a bench while the kids ran around and played. We get to socialize and so do they. It didn't cramp their style in the slightest.

And to announce a SPECIFIC DAY to leave your kids at the park? Geez, just watch all the electronic monitoring devices converge on the parks at once, why don't we?