That's right wysiwyg. What do we do? I hate to say it can't be fixed. Not in my lifetime. Safety over freedom.
I'd dearly love to give my boys a few coins and they'd love biking to the bakery and buying something. But that's just flat out illegal. DS2 was dead keen to buy his own drink the other day. I gave him the money and let him do the rest, while watching from as far away as 'legal'. He was quietly chuffed.
But it's not enough, and I just can't open the door and let them walk to their friend and be home by dinner.
Just rambling, but I feel it's a lost cause. My ds1 walked from the carpark to the post box with a letter a few months ago. I waited and watched. A postie was going past on her bike and she stopped him and asked him where his mum was. He won't do it again, as he felt he got told off. The postie was doing the right thing - she doesn't know him or me. She was trying to help. We just don't let kids be alone and independent, because we can't.
I read this article yesterday and thought it was great, and so fascinating!! Love reading about how other cultures do things. I think we can learn a lot from them.
It's hard these days but we can do some things, like lots of time outside, like the article said:
'In 2011, Unicef asked children what they needed to be happy, and the top three things were time (particularly with families), friendships and, tellingly, "outdoors". Studies show that when children are allowed unstructured play in nature, their sense of freedom, independence and inner strength all thrive, and children surrounded by nature are not only less stressed but also bounce back from stressful events more readily.'
I tried controlled crying for about an hour.....it didn't work out...
I love a Sunday afternoon sitting on the deck soaking up the sunshine and the laughter echoing around from my youngest son, the neighbours children bouncing on the trampoline, the boys out the front calling a race to the corner on their bikes (in turn setting all the dogs in the street off), the excited giggles from next door because daddy's got the bubbles out again. It's sad that it is becoming lest commonplace for children be outside.
When we were growing up we were told we had to be home by tea time. We had the freedom to ride our bikes up to the corner shop or a friends house.
We climbed trees.
We got up to mischief.
We played in the street.
We climbed the fence to hang out with the neighbours kids.
Times change, but is society so different or is the internet and easy access to information opening our eyes up to the dangers that the world can present to our young ones. I just hope that I have the ability to give my children (well, toddler ....the other one is 18 now!) the sense of freedom to be who they want to be.
I don't stop DS2 from climbing the fence or a tree. I let him play in the dirt, jump into a pool to see if he can swim (obviously I'm in the pool and, hey, that's how I learnt to swim) and investigate nature. If he's not dirty then he hasn't had a good day. When he gets older, and if there are children his age in the street, then I hope they can all play together and make a ton of noise ride their bikes up the street to the shops.
Last edited by Cass72; May 8th, 2013 at 03:44 PM.
: Premature submitting...how terribly embarrasing!
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