The youngest was 14. You can't protect your children everywhere, but when I can over something as silly as a ride... I will opt to protect my child.
And the oldest was 20. Does this mean we should be following our twenty year olds around everywhere in order to keep them safe? A
middle aged woman was abducted a little while ago in Canada and held in a basement for several weeks. Should her mum have been keeping a better eye on her?
While I completely respect your right to do what makes you most comfortable with regards to your own child at age ten, when do we start allowing out kids some freedom? Would you allow your 14yo to wait on a bench alone? Your 16yo? Your 20yo?
I wouldn't make that assumption. My middle child would not have wanted to ride Haunted Mansion at age 10. Yet he has always been very mature and responsible. He's just very "cautious". That caution has helped him make some great decisions along the way to adulthood.
This should have been a poll.
Count me in as another one who would have been fine leaving one of my children on the bench when he was ten, and maybe a bit nervous about the other (though I probably would have made the decision to trust her anyway).
Like yours, my son is deeply suspicious and cautious. I never worried about him in public, since the thought of him going anywhere with someone he doesn't know is pretty much unthinkable. He's a master of the brush-off. My daughter was far more trusting... but also very smart and logical. And both kids have been well versed in what is appropriate and inappropriate behaviour in adults, and what to do if someone's making them uncomfortable. So, in this case, my answer would be, "Yes." Because even if I spent the whole time in the ride feeling nervous, I'd consider it MORE important that my kids get that taste of trust and independence and competence.
And honestly, in this age of cellphones and instant communication, I feel far more secure allowing my children the freedom to go places alone, then I would if this were still the eighties and stepping out the door meant you couldn't be contacted.
By ten, my kids were walking to the library and park alone. My son was riding the public transit to his summer band camp alone at 11. The ONE time there was ever an emergency (my son was 9 and passed out cold at the Pizza Pizza counter), my then 11yo daughter handled it beautifully. While everyone around her called 911, she spotted what she considered a "safe stranger" (a college aged woman), borrowed her cellphone to call me, and then asked the woman to wait with her until I showed up. I was about five blocks away. The ambulance parked around the corner while the paramedics checked my son out. When I arrived, the woman said, "Thank goodness you're here. She wouldn't let me leave!"
