Do You Believe in Free-Range Parenting?
Lenore Skenazy was dubbed "America's Worst Mom" after she wrote a column about how she and her husband allow their 9-year-old son to ride the New York City subway alone, without parental supervision. Lenore says that granting her son permission to do so "didn't even strike [her] as a big deal," but her column went viral and the "bad mom" moniker stuck.
"I think the reason [it resonated] is because we're so overprotective these days of our children that the idea of them doing anything on their own… just scared people so much," Lenore says.
Rather than being too scared to allow her son to do things, Lenore embraces "Free-Range Parenting," a term she coined that Lenore likens to the parenting style of her own childhood, which offered kids more freedom to do things viewed in today's society as risky or inappropriate.
"We've been keeping [kids] inside, for their own safety, to make sure they're protected," Lenore says. "Maybe what they really need is a childhood."
Anderson can relate to Lenore's point of view, admitting that he was a Free Range Kid himself. Hear more about Lenore's Free-Range Parenting theory in the video below.
Comments
Maria, I think you would change your opinion if you knew how amazingly easy it is for some to land on the sex offender registry
I was surprised at how much I had to say about this interview! I agree with the concept Ms Skenazy is proposing, but I disagree with how she is going about it. Children playing on their own, outside, with other children does not need to be done IN CENTRAL PARK.
If you are interested, I posted a full commentary on my blog: http://laughingmom.com/2012/09/15/game-off-game-on/
While I agree "helicopter" parenting is ridiculous.. this is just a really super way justify neglect.
A lot of parents say "ha ha it takes a village to raise a kid".. maybe the village doesn't want to raise your kids.
When you run with the pack you tend to adopt pack behaviour.
Vandalism, bullying, and minor crimes. This means that pack of kids running wild in the park could decide that batting frogs into the pond would be a good idea cause it's really cool when they explode like that.... chasing feral cats, catching the geese and ducks... keying cars... breaking into cars... stealing gas.. hooking up with that group of older kids...being pressured to steal beer.. having sex at twelve... STDs at thirteen...pregnancy at 14... welfare before 15... ALL ON OUR SOCIETY... So thanks for stepping up and being a parent. Don't listen to the villagers complaining just expect them to pick up where you left off..
all that or worse. ..
Like a lot of people in my generation I WAS a free range kid... MOST OF THIS STUFF I DID. Some by choice some not by choice. Some was simply a scared witness.
Yes, a lot of the time I had FUN...Sure I played kick the can and capture the flag.. a lot of that stuff up there I mentioned was FUN... but I also was scared a lot of the time.
I saw my friends do some pretty bad stuff...but a handful of us even thrived and went on to university and on to real grown up lives. hurray for us.
A few friends are still in that weird world.. they learned a little about life and survived.
.. but another smaller group didn't. They died and fell by the wayside one way or another. Too bad for them. Survival of the fittest after all.
No. We have enough "free range" kids in the world.
What society really is in short supply of is interactive parenting. Sounds strange right? Every parent I meet seems to be looking for an excuse not to spend time with their kids... after school activities, lessons, working late, television, video games, computers and now this free range business.
It would make a bigger difference on Society for the WORLD if more parents cared enough to spend a little extra time with their kids. Not just car pooling and extracting daily events over hamburger helper for that twenty minute 'family dinner time'. I mean spend time with them. Telling jokes, sharing stories just let them get to know you.
SURE - Take 'em to the park let them run around without guidance from you.. Take a book. Let them play. But just please be there to make sure your kid isn't the one hogging the slide, having a sand fight around the littler kids, shoving gum in the drinking fountain, throwing rocks at squirrels and breaking windows in that old house next to the park... and so on up to whatever nuisance the average kid might cause, follow, or be a victim of.
But hey.. whatever. If you have an article to write.. then heck ya... you're kids are better off getting all that fresh air and street education then sitting in front of the television anyway.
Did it ever occur to you dear Lenore, to apply all that data chasing research to real life? Ask yourself "why" the crime rate seems to have dropped? perhaps because we're not as naive as our parents were. We lock our doors at night and know where our kids are.
There is no reason this mom should have been dubbed "worst mom". She's a mom who rationally thought about this decision and conversed with her son -- already doing two things that MANY moms (let's just think some TV moms) do neither of. I tend to parent somewhere in the middle. I don't like the idea of my neighbors twin girls playing in the middle of our road (it is a quiet neighborhood), but I tend to be on the less protective, more helping my son explore side. Let people make their decisions without dubbing them names or condemning them.
People are way to over protective these days they don't let kids grow up and mature. I NEVER thought of this mother as the wort mom ever. I thought of her as a good mom, perhaps not the greatest as I am sure there are others out there but she has taught her kids how to mature, take responsibility, use common sense which i might add not kids (or adults) seem to have now adays. The kid knew how to do everything, they taught him well and let him jump the nest knowing her knew to fly. I am 33yo. My parents had 4 kids b4 me. Perhaps they gave up when I came around or they just discovered they taught us what we needed to know and let us make our own decisions. As a kid I would ride my bike with friends for miles traveling to the parks and riding the bike paths. we would be out to the malls alone back in middle school. For our prom nights they let my siblings go to niagra falls for the night (it is a few hours away) all b4 cell phones were invented or at least became common in every kids hand. The world isn't worse then b4, we ALWAYS had rapists, kidnappers, killers. we just hear about it more due to the ongoing media, and people being more vocal about it and the Growing population. But the world is also safer because kids are now armed with cell phones, taught self defense in gymclass. are taught about stranger danger and to be leary of them. or at least parents SHOULD be teaching kids about it.
I cangradulate this woman and wish more parents would PREPARE their kids for moments like these. STop Babying kids and start turning them into adults b4 time is too late and we have 18 yo who can't do a darned thing without mommy and daddy holding their freakin hand.
those who say that what she did is wrong are a bunch of over protective wierdos. The kid wasn't just dropped off and said "here ya go try and find your way" no the kid had traveled the same route several times with their parents. I am sure even without a map he knew where to go and probably seen the same people as well on the subway and even befriended 1 or 2. He was also taught how to read a map so if he did forget or something happened he knew what to do. I think that if the parents didn't think he was ready they wouldn't have let him. When I learned to drive my parents let me drive into the inner city to visit a relative and take the interloop, something that even grown adults don't like doing but we traveled it so many times in the past that I knew how to get there and I knew were I was going. I made it there and back (without maps or gps)and home without getting lost or shot. I might also add that it is a crime infested area where shootings are always mentioned in the news.It made me feel proud of myself, my relative happy to see me and my parents proud and reassured that I could they taught me well and knew what I was doing.
I agree especially with her comment about parenting seeming like a 'spectator sport'-in my opinion, and I sometimes have to force myself to shut my mouth as well with friends and my kids who are parents, if a child is not being physically hurt let a parent be the kind of parent they want to be. In the end it does not have everything to do with how kids 'turn out' many go the exact extreme from what parents attempt to teach or be. What works for one parent/child may not work for another.
My mom raised 4 kids, I raised 6- though my mom was the same with each of us, we all turned out different with sometimes the same, and other times vastly different perceptions on how we were parented. Same with my kids-I parented with what I knew at the time each step of the way, the best I could, which was correct for the needs of 4 of my kids who describe me as ‘always supportive, someone to look up to, and someone they can depend on to truthfully answer a question’ the other 2 would describe me as ’unavailable, selfish, not supportive enough’ they are all persons I love with great depth and have much admiration and respect for all 6 of them. No matter how we parent kids grow into people whose perceptions are formed as much by their own experience with persons outside the home they admire, or despise, are attracted to or not-in the journey of forming their own perceptions and opinions. Parents are a huge part-but they cannot be everything to everyone at all times either. We succeed, and we fail.
I was over protected as a child even though we lived in a little Mayberry town where no one locked their doors. BUT it was only because my grandparents, who adopted me at age 5, thought I'd be like my biological mother. She'd say she was going this place and she'd go somewhere else usually with a man or two. I never even considered doing the things she did but I guess they worried about that.
I think part of it this day and age is all the stories about kids being kidnapped and killed while out alone. We don't let my son be outside but himself, but then again he's only 3 lol. We so see kids that can't be older than 2 (still running around in diapers) roaming around our complex without an adult in site. Those are the kids that are gonna end up getting hit by a car here because people fly through here at 30 plus MPH and don't pay attention...and well the kids just stand in the middle of the road and look at people like they're crazy for expecting them to move so they can drive.
I feel like over-protective parenting has been a more recent shift in parenting styles. It seems to have really gained ground in the last 10 years. I have seen it first hand in my family. I am now 26. Growing up in the '90s my parents would drop me off at the mall with a friend at age 9 to see a movie by myself. I rode my bike to school and friends houses by myself throughout elementary and middle school. I loved it! It was wonderful!
However, my younger brother, who is 11 years my junior, has been much more overly-protected by the SAME two people that raised me. My mom was talking to me yesterday about how she was hesitant to let my 15-year-old brother go to a small amusement park very close to their home with a few friends. I had to remind her that he is 15! She also makes him call her when he reaches a friends house on his bike in the same neighborhood. And she just started letting him ride his bike to friends houses fairly recently.They live in a very safe suburban neighborhood.
I always ask her why her parenting style is so different with him than it was when I was little. Her impression is that times have changed. The world is different and feels less safe. I feel like it is wide spread panic. A mind set embedded into today's parents.
I am currently pregnant with my first and am curious to see what my parenting style will be. You never know until you actually have children. . .
I was an only child. Since my parents lost twins about 8 years before I was born, I was raised by very over-protective parents. By the time I was 16, it was driving me crazy.
As fate would have it, I had one child. So I went through the scenario again from the opposite side. Drawing from my own experience, I tried very hard to not be over-protective. I wanted to be supportive & nurturing without hovering. It is like walking a tight-rope, but feasible.
Our neighbors have 5 children. I am not sure what you would call their parenting-style, but it's pathetic! The children range from 6 mos. to 8 years. The parents are clueless as to what these kids do, where they are, etc. We have observed the oldest going out his bedroom window, after dark & when it was barely daylight ... wearing his pajamas ... hair sticking straight up ... barefoot, etc. Neighbors know more about these kids than their parents do. For lack of a better analogy, they are like little monkeys loose from the zoo. It is evident that they have NOT been trained on what to do, how to act, etc. They are just, by the grace of God, winging it through life. Somehow, that seems MORE like neglect than parenting.
The more I see these kids, the more thankful I am for having parents who were involved. Even though mine were overly protective, they were there. They taught me how to take care of myself, etc. They knew where I was and who I was with. OMG! I'm thankful that I had the common sense to also be an involved parent. It makes a huge difference and the results show rather quickly!
I grew up in a world where you could be outside until after dark running around your neighborhood. I started walking to school by myself or neighbor kids when I was 6. But times have changed. Bad people existed then too but it's so much more noticable, it feels like it happens more and more these days. Kids being kidnapped, shot at, murdered. I am over protective, it's something I am working on being better at, but I am not ready to completly give my son who is 11 all of the responsibility of being safe in the world all by himself. Sure talking with your kids and having common sense will help, but they are just kids too. We can not expect them to be free-range and always make the right decissions on there own.
I lived on the east side Paris for a year with my 12 year old son and he commuted on his own to American school on the west side each school day. I did go with him the first few days, but after he learned the several routes to get there, he took over and went on his own. I felt it was a great experience for him and would probably do it again.
i dont agree with the subway thing, but i SO agree with the other things. about keeping the kids in to protect them.
This totally cracks me up. I was 100% a free range kid along with my twin brother growing up. And I consider myself a 100% free range parent with my two kids. You wanna know what Europe is thinking about this article? ....NOTHING, because this is completely NORMAL in Europe as they believe in raising self sufficient children & laugh at Americans as how overprotective & insaine we are with safety. & I'm not talking safety as in teaching our kids "stranger danger", which I think is important. I'm talking about the fact that we can no longer find jackets for kids with ties in the hood because God forbid someone pulls it tight enough to choke! ...SERIOUSLY!?!?! We are idiots in America raising scared stupid children who cannot do anything for themselves & take NO responsibilty for their actions! ...and it's the faults of the PARENTS!!!
I would let my 9 year old step-daughter on the subway, not my 8 year old step-son. My 9 year old acts and thinks like a teen while my 8 year old acts and thinks like a 4 year old. They are 1 year apart but acts years apart. Some children are more mature than others and can be trusted to do things alone, not all kids though.