conuly | Entries tagged with free range

Or the lack thereof.

Now, every time it comes up about people not having this type of playground equipment or that type of playground equipment in their area, it's all "oh, oh, oversafety".

And I have no doubt that misguided safety concerns lead to the boringification of many playgrounds. (REALLY misguided safety concerns. If you make the playground "safe", kids just play less safely, resulting in a net loss of, well, safety.)

But this specific person complained that playgrounds in preschools near her were cramped and small... and also, lacked swings. If they're small and cramped, they probably don't have room for swings. Swings require a lot of space, and only a few children can use them at any one time. If you're short on space, better to use something that many children can play on at once, and that allows for greater scope in play.

Especially in a preschool, where having swings means you need people to help the children on the swings.

At any rate, the conversation revealed something interesting. I mentioned, after several comments about kids running in front of swings and getting bonked in the head, that I thought that sounded just weird. Don't all swingsets in playgrounds have fences around them to prevent this from happening?

Apparently not, and many people said they'd never seen such a thing. Which strikes me, like I said, as weird. It's the norm, possibly even the law for NYC playgrounds! What's it like where you are?

Also on that blog is this link on lunchtime notes. Now, it's always amused me that whenever it's something that the person in question did as a kid or does with their kids it's quite all right, but when it's something Those Other Folks do it's a sign of the apocalypse.

And this can go both ways. Class birthday parties are anti-free range and spoiling children because GOD, can't kids go on in the school day without that silliness? Not having class birthday parties is anti-free range and cruel to children because GOD, did it ever hurt any of us? Leashes are cruel and restrictive. Hand-holding is cruel and restrictive. Teaching your kid to stand by your side is cruel and restrictive. Letting your child run around is cruel to everybody else and stupid. And don't get me started on Santa.

No, no matter what position you commonly take in whatever broader argument you're currently fighting, any individual child-raising practice can be neatly slotted in on your side or theirs, and extolled or demonized as you see fit.

In this case, notes in lunchboxes (except very rarely) are hovering and helicopterish.

Now, I agree, that the pre-printed notes mentioned are sappy and dumb. It's a lunchbox note, not an affirmation. Sending in a note saying "I love you unconditionally" is a good way to get your kid teased, and sending in a note saying that that you purchased ready-made is a good way to confuse your child. "Dad loves me, but not enough to write four words on a piece of paper?"

But I don't think that writing a note, even daily, is going to warp your child's individuality. I mean, it's not like they're bringing their kids home every day for an hour-long lunch with Mom, a newfangled idea that my mother grew up with. Oh. Wait. Right! Lunchbox notes are hovering and unprecedented, but much greater parental involvement at lunch in the past goes unmentioned, probably because it doesn't fit in with this image.

Current Mood: cheerful

One on how helicopter parenting leaves you with very very little time for grown-up pursuits

And another article on a similar topic!

Current Mood: bored

So I picked up this link over on the FRK blog. I wish she'd crosspost it properly, I like the commenters there better.

Whether you should leave your child in the children's room for three minutes while you check out a book depends, of course, on your child, your librarian, your library, and your own sense. (Duh.) There are libraries that are little havens of defense, and libraries that aren't even remotely safe, and most fall somewhere in the middle. If it happens that children are molested at your local library every other week, you might not want to leave them alone there. I'm just sayin'. But if they aren't, use your best judgment, like always.

Some of these comments, now, are so wildly off as to be hysterical. A sampling:

( Read more... )

And one last thing: To the dozens of people whose comment runs "BUT ADAM WALSH!" - Adam Walsh died some 30 years ago. Find something more recent.

Incidentally, I think it's perfectly in the librarian's rights to say "If you think your kid needs supervision, I'm not going to provide it." I just think these comments are wrong.

Current Mood: cheerful

They're all here, I'll just pick and choose

( Not much snark this time )

I want to end with the closing paragraphs of the actual article:

Recently, Amy Utzinger, a mother of four in Tucson, Ariz., let her daughter, 7, walk down the block to play with a friend. Five houses. Same side of the street.

Afterward, the friend’s mother drove Mrs. Utzinger’s daughter home. “She said, ‘I just drove her back, just in case ... you know,’ ” recalled Mrs. Utzinger. “What was I supposed to say? How can you argue against ‘just in case’?”

I'll tell you how you argue against 'just in case'. You point out that the risk of dying in a fatal crash is so insanely high that you never let your child enter a car without your permission and stare at this woman as though she's deluded - which she is if she has to drive your kid five houses instead of, you know, walking her... or watching from the porch.

Current Mood: calm

Here's one on the school whose kids had an amazing Lego city
And a reaction to said article, which I've never seen before.

And one, two, three articles I just got from FreeRangeKids. I'll crosspost that last article and then take on some of the comments in a bit. The comments are mostly decent, but that's because the NYTimes requires comments to be approved first.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: tired

These committed by minors. I think I've already posted this before, so I don't think I'll bother c+ping it.

Here's an article contrasting the tight leash kids are on when out-and-about with the laxer standards in the house.

Telling quote: A study by Kristen Zgoba of the New Jersey Department of Corrections found that the state’s system for registering sex offenders and warning their neighbours cost millions of dollars and had no discernible effect on the number of sex crimes. Restricting where sex offenders can live is supposed to keep them away from potential victims, but it is doubtful that this works. A determined predator can always catch a bus.

No discernible effect. Wow.

( I've heard of Ms. Whittaker before )

Current Mood: amused

I saw water fountains - real fountains with real water that gets cold when you run it (and you CAN run it, WE have no drought!) and tastes like water instead of like some unholy combination of salt and mud... oh!

Poor Ana had a fit the day we got to California because of the water quality (and the fact that she was extremely tired and hungry). She and Evangeline had so much juice...! Day before we left, I had a bottle of water I couldn't open. My mother couldn't open it. My aged grandmother (pushing 90 now!) got it in a few seconds. We, uh, loosened it for her.

Our garden is terribly overgrown, but that's all right. We seem to have obtained a new form of mint while we were gone that's taking over EVERYthing. Mint will do that, but this is a bit much even for mint - and I'm not even sure what kind of mint it is! Could be mountain mint, but I'm sure I decided *not* to plant that....

Our flight was fairly uneventful. Our flight out - oy. Oh dear god. I asked my mother in the airport terminal NOT to buy the headphones, feeling that they're altogether too interested in TV as it is and conscious of the many things I'd picked up to entertain them. So she... bought them anyway. And gave them to the kids first thing, as SOON as they sat down, before I asked them.

Naturally they squabbled over watching the same show (or not) and I had to find the channel for them, and I had to check periodically to make sure it was reasonably child-appropriate, and they were cranky and annoying the whole way. My mother said she thought she'd be able to help me in the flight - ha! She sat behind me and never switched seats halfway through like she PROMISED she would. Never had a chance to read any book or eat anything of my own.

Our flight back, I knew my mother would still be in California. This time, I got to make the choice - No. Headphones. My lovely mother goes "They'll scream!" at me. How insulting! Not only insulting my judgment - and I do like to believe I know my nieces well enough - but also of the girls. How does she think anybody managed before inflight TV? Does she think we had that when we flew across the ocean?

Guess what? True to *my* predictions they were darlings the whole flight, they helped each other with their craft supplies (Klutz books, how I love you!), they were friendly and sweet, and the crew went out of their way to compliment their behavior.

TV does not make them behave better. (Duh.)

In the airport (I guess I'm doing this backwards) I got to listen to a totally asinine lecture on Evangeline's choice of underwear... or the lack of underwear under her shorts. Apparently you could see that if she flopped backwards and you looked. Whoops.

"Don't you KNOW that children are KILLED every DAY and there are PEDOphiles?" "What, here in the airport kids are killed every day?" "No, not in the airport". Given that she was TSA I decided to stop the conversation there and not point out that, frankly, I simply don't care unless children are routinely being snatched from that particular airport. Isn't that what security is for, anyway? (And even if they were - guess what? It wasn't going to happen. They were holding my hands until we got to the plane, then they were going to sit right next to me.) And what did she think, that cotton panties have magic powers to repel evildoers? They're panties, not chastity belts! Or maybe that pervs only go after children without panties. If *that* is the case, they're even weirder than I thought. Bit of a long shot, waiting for a kid to come along without the appropriate amount of underwear. (Admittedly, I would've put her in panties instead of just the shorts if I'd realized we could have this problem, but not out of fear. I just don't like her flashing people.) I also didn't mention to the TSA woman her grasp of the statistics of the situation was totally flawed. I was Being Pragmatic. (And she meant well, in her wrongheaded way.)

I have to wonder why she was looking at Evangeline's crotch in the first place, though. I mean, even when the kiddo flopped on the floor it wasn't that obvious until you looked for it....