Raise you hands if you think we’re raising our kids in a dangerous world…
Kidnappers. Child molesters. School shootings. Bullies. Internet. Rusty nail. Red dye #40.
If you feel like the world is scarier today than when you were a kid, you’re not alone. In a survey of parents in the UK, nearly half said they don’t let their kids play outside because they’re worried about safety.
Overprotective parenting has become a lifestyle for many families. When I tell my neighbors that I’d like to let my 6 year old go to the playground without me soon, they’re shocked. If I remind them that I walked all over my neighborhood without an adult when I was just a year or two older than her, they reply, “The world is different today.”
But protecting your kids too much is just as dangerous as not protecting them enough. It might seem safer for your kids to spend all their time in supervised, structured activities, constantly observed by qualified, caring adults. But researchers are discovering that kids need more than supervised exercise: they need freedom. They need to organize their own activities, not just follow adult direction. They need to solve their own problems, negotiate the social world of other kids, and regulate their own actions without adult interference.
In other words, they need for us to stop protecting them from everything. They need for us to let them get out in the world, despite the danger.
Because our job as parents isn’t just to protect our kids. It’s also to prepare them for life.
We can’t wait till they’re adults to start practicing; they need to start now to learn the skills they’ll need to thrive and succeed.
Here’s how we can stop being overprotective parents and give our kids the freedom they need to grow.
1. Don’t Worry Too Much About Unlikely Dangers
In a survey on babycenter, a popular parenting site, parents shared their biggest fears for their kids. Top of the list was the fear that kids wouldn’t live up to their potential —a worry so nebulous it’s almost impossible to measure. But second on the list was something much more concrete and dramatic: parents fear that a stranger will attack or kidnap their child.
I understand this fear; I was raised on it. Growing up in the age of Amber alerts and missing kids on milk cartons, I was drilled daily on the danger of strangers. My mother used to read me headlines from the newspaper about child murders and abductions. By the time I was 10, I was convinced that every adult I didn’t know was a murderer waiting to attack me. I was afraid to walk into a store because I thought the cashier was a kidnapper. I was afraid to go for a walk in my (safe, suburban) neighborhood at twilight, because I thought anyone else out walking must be a serial killer. I was even nervous around adults I knew, like the dad of the family I babysat for, because I thought no adult could really be trusted.
But by the time I became a mother, I knew I wanted to raise my children with a different mindset. I didn’t want them to grow up always looking over their shoulders in fear. I wanted them to know that most people are trustworthy, and that adults who are plotting to kidnap and murder don’t live on every corner.
So I made a deliberate choice. Instead of teaching my daughter about stranger danger, I taught her about appropriate ways for adults to interact with kids —and how to recognize when someone’s behavior is unusual or inappropriate.
I taught her how to recognize adults who are trustworthy —like policemen, or, failing that, a mom with kids and a cell phone.
Is she prepared to resist a potential kidnapper? I can’t be sure. And lucky for me, the chances are high that I’ll never be sure —because the likelihood that she’ll ever face that danger is incredibly low.
In fact, she’s more likely to be injured in a car accident while I’m driving her to school than she is to get kidnapped while she’s walking to school alone.
The possibility of her getting attacked by a stranger is only slightly more likely than the possibility that she’ll get struck by lightning —and it’s actually less likely to happen today than it was when I was a kid.
So much for the widespread belief that the world is more dangerous today for kids.
Most of the fears that lead us to restrict our kids’ freedom are equally improbable. Of course anything is possible, but we shouldn’t structure our lives around something that’s about as likely as a lightning strike. It’s not worth the worry.
2. Teach Your Kids How to Handle Risks
Knowing how unlikely your fears are to be realized might mitigate some of your worry. There are plenty of scary things that are likely to happen to your kids, from playground accidents to bullies. These things can’t be prevented —no matter how much you hover near your child on the monkey bars, at some point he’s going to take a fall. How can you stop worrying about things like that?
You can’t child-proof everything. But you can, as Lenore Skenasky of Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)
You can teach them skills to handle likely scenarios, and you can teach them what to do in dangerous situations. Then, as your kids grow, you won’t have to worry about trusting that bad things won’t happen. Instead, you’ll trust your kids ability to handle those things if they do happen.
Is your child too young for you to start moving away from constant worry and over-protectiveness? If you ask me, the answer is no —no matter how old your child is. You might think teaching your child to handle dangerous situations is something you should put off till he’s in high school or college, but consider this: if you wait till he really needs more freedom, then when will he have a chance to practice exercising freedom in a safe environment?
No matter how old your child is, the time to start teaching him to handle more freedom is right now.
Here are a few practical ideas to let young kids explore risk in safe ways:
1 – Let your baby explore —and don’t baby proof everything.
Go with your own comfort level: if you’re really worried about your baby electrocuting herself in outlets, then get the covers for your own peace of mind. But don’t feel like you have to pad every corner and block every stair. Teach your baby not to touch the stove and to be careful on the stairs. The sooner he can learn to explore safely, the less you’ll need to worry.
2 – Let your toddler climb at the playground —and don’t help him.
When I take my toddler to the playground, I often see moms helping their kids climb on structures that the kids wouldn’t be able to ascend on their own. To me, this seems more dangerous than letting my toddler climb without help. If he can’t get up on his own, how is he going to learn to get down safely?
So I set a rule early on: if my kids can’t get up something without help, they don’t belong there. This enables them to explore their own limits and abilities —which helps them stay safe when I’m not standing right there to catch them.
3 – Let your preschooler play unsupervised in the yard.
My daughter was three when I started sending her out in the yard alone to play. I have a fenced yard, and I wouldn’t have trusted her to stay out of the road at that age otherwise, but the independence and pride she felt at being outside on her own was wonderful.
4 – Let your school aged child walk to school or the store with a friend.
There’s an amazing sense of freedom and power that kids get when they can get their own needs met without adult help, even if it’s something as simple as walking to the corner store to buy some juice. Practice by walking together and having your child direct you so you know she knows how to get there, and when she feels ready, let her try the trip on her own.
3. Understand the Danger of Avoiding Risk
Everything has a cost.
You might think that keeping your child closely supervised and contained is the safest choice. But there’s a price to taking away your child’s freedom to explore, to solve problems, even to be bored.
If the benefits of independence don’t inspire you, it might help you to direct some of your worry toward the consequences of too much protection. Consider this:
If you’re always watching your kids on the playground and warning them to be careful whenever they try something that looks unsafe to you, they’ll learn to trust your observations over their own instincts. They won’t be able to test their physical abilities or trust their bodies, because you’ll always be telling them whether something is safe or not. When you’re finally not there any more, they’ll be more likely to be injured, because they won’t know what they’re capable of.- If you never let them practice going places without an adult (like walking to school or to a store), they won’t learn how to navigate or what to do when they get lost. When they finally do start going places on their own (maybe when they learn to drive), they’ll get lost a lot more often.
- If you’re always helping them figure out social situations and intervening if they have a disagreement with another child, they’ll never learn how to negotiate social disagreements without help. Even as adults, they’ll want to turn to an outside mediator for every disagreement instead of working problems out within relationships.
If you’re always watching your kids on the playground and warning them to be careful whenever they try something that looks unsafe to you, they’ll learn to trust your observations over their own instincts. They won’t be able to test their physical abilities or trust their bodies, because you’ll always be telling them whether something is safe or not. When you’re finally not there any more, they’ll be more likely to be injured, because they won’t know what they’re capable of.Yes, the world is dangerous. But rusty nails and red dye #40 will probably not kill your kids. And no matter how scary the world feels, the dangers of overprotecting your kids are just as widespread and real, and in the long run they’re probably more harmful to your kids.
The 2-Minute Action Plan for Fine Parents
Giving your child more freedom is scary —but the more you do it, the more you’ll discover how it frees you from worry. Ask yourself:
- Is there a simple (but potentially risky) activity that you’re not letting your child do right now even though you know she has the skills and knowledge to handle it safely? What one thing could you start to let her do on her own?
- Is there something your child has been asking to do that you’ve been too scared to let him try? What’s the worst that could happen if he tried it? Can you let him practice it in a safer way first?
The Ongoing Action Plan for Fine Parents
Risk is part of life. This week, let your child do something they’ve been wanting to do that you’ve been afraid was too risky. You might be amazed to discover how ready they are to handle it!
And if you have a child that is fearful or scared to do something, stay tuned… next week we’ll have for you a wonderful article detailing some powerful strategies to help your kids overcome fear. (To receive the article directly in your mailbox, sign up here if you haven’t already done so.)
My two boys are 5 and 3. We’ve found camping a great way to let them start to take risks and have freedom but in a safe environment, as most campsite are pretty self contained. Once we’ve checked out the campsite is safe and discussed any potential dangers, they can run around together, go to the play area and explore on their own. We sometimes let them make purchases for us at the camp shop as well. They really enjoy the chance to be independent.
Oh, that’s a fun idea! Camping is such a great activity anyway — but I love the idea of giving them the chance to explore on their own. Of course, that might not be such a great idea if you’re camping out in the woods instead of a campground (ask me how I know…lol…got lost in the woods when I was a kid once!).
Yeah, that does sound like such a fun idea. I personally am a long way off from doing that though… we’re yet to take our daughter camping (she is 6, and has been asking to go camping since she was 4 I think! 🙂 ) I do try to give her some freedom when we go out bbq-ing or having a picnic… but nowhere near as much as you ladies!
Great piece. This sounds a lot like the way we parent. My middle child in particular was a climber at a young age and we found it much easier to let her get good at it and not have to worry than to be constantly pulling her off things.
The real problem anymore is often other people. Other parents were horrified when we let our daughter climb to the tops of things on her own at 18 months old, even though she was fine. I’ve been sending my oldest alone to Target two blocks away when we needed things like milk since she was nine, but a neighbor of ours a block away still won’t let her walk home alone from their house after a play date.
I think there are many parents who would like to give their children more freedom and a chance to do things out in the world, but they are afraid of being judged, or worse, arrested. I’m agog at recent news stories about people in trouble with the law over leaving their children alone for any period of time in a public space. Ideally people should step up and help when needed, but I think many fear the risks there as well.
I completely agree that other people are the biggest problem with this! The news lately has been blowing my mind. It’s terrifying. I wrote a post for Free-Range Kids about that once — about how I wasn’t scared to let my toddler play in the yard, but I was terrified of how the neighbors would react if they saw her.
Yeah, you’re both right. A couple of weeks back I’d gone to a conference (WDS 2014 — woot!) and met this really nice person. We got around to talking about what we do, and I mentioned this blog, which led to talking about parenting etc. To me, she came across as a really nice person and really committed to her kids… she hosted an alternate education meetup, and is actively involved in education reform etc. And she told me that some time back she was arrested for letting her son play in the street unsupervised. The judge had to get involved and throw her case out.
To me, someone who is not raised in the US, all this is kind of unfamiliar. Listening to (first hand!) stories like that really makes you second guess yourself and the choices you make — I don’t know if I could be brave like her and survive getting arrested!
Sorry to gripe on something that’s not the subject of this post, but please tell your daughter that she should look for police officers, not just policemen. One of *my* biggest fears is that my daughter will grow up in a world where men are still considered the norm. I think that just catching those assumptions and adjusting our language can make a difference. Thanks alot.
Eleanor, I agree with you that catching those assumptions and adjusting our language can make a difference. That said, no matter how hard we try, there is just no way we can protect our kids from something like this (I have a daughter too, so I understand your frustration). To me this is definitely a case for world-proofing our kids instead of protecting them 🙂
Sumitha,
How careful can we be ? We need to think about every word we bring out of our mouths- I read somewhere that words are so powerful that they can make or break a person. But it is so difficult to break the stereotype about the police being only men and to start using new terms like police officers. It is so true that we need to adjust our words according to the changing times.
Susie
I appreciate you bringing up the point of male-default language and would argue the use of police officer is much more inclusive. That said, I think it’s even more important to recognized the white privilege inherent in the statement “look for a trustworthy person like the police.” Police officers are, unfortunately, not automatically safe for people of all skin colors and backgrounds. That’s just the reality. I like the direction this article is going in, but want to call in biases when I see them (and I’m still learning too, just like everyone else).
Wonderful post and so appropriate for this time and age. In the Middle Eastern country where I live, there is no chance for children to be allowed to play outside at least for 8 months of the year because of the extreme heat. So what I do is invite my daughter’s friends home and allow them to play inside in the evening. The children enjoy themselves, because we allow them to do anything and they have a free run over the house. Over the years, they have learnt which rooms to enter and which rooms to keep out of because my husband or I may be using them. They clean up before they go too. But I do worry when it is my daughter’s turn to go to other houses to play and I keep praying for her safe return. After all for all the freedom I can give her, I am a mother first.
I can totally relate to this, Susie! I am always happy to have my daughter’s friends over for a play date, but unless I personally know the parents of her friends, I hesitate to send her over. So, these days I just suggest that we meet at a park or a play area, where we can let the kids play while we parents chat — reduces the complications.
Really!?!? I find this ridiculous… Let kids be kids! My daughter walk/rides her bike or scooter all round my neighbourhood to play with her friends. I live directly behind the Elementry school and the kids (that are allowed to play outside) go and play at the schools playground. Only 2 of her 10 neighbourhood friends are allowed to leave their homes to play at another kids house, some rant even allowed out of their backyard!!!
Those parents are always asking me “how can I just let her walk down the street to someone else’s home without walking with her to keep her safe”… I tell them that if I don’t trust her to follow my teachings of safety then I don’t trust myself to properly teach the child.
The only way to know if they have learn the basics is to test them by expanding their outside boundaries when they obey the rules and shrink their boundaries when they brek the rules; like when they leave one friends house to go to another’s without informing me or not being home on time.
I also find myself telling my young kids about people they can trust, like police officers or also moms with kids (as you pointed out). However, as a dad I think this type of thing is also feeding into the notion that men in general can’t be trusted. For instance, a parent would likely have no concern letting their daughter sleep over at a girlfriend’s house and letting the mom help them with a bath or getting into PJ’s, but if it was a single dad or an instance where the mom was out of town I don’t see that situation playing out the same. I also think this is more a class issue, as I don’t think you (or anyone else) means to tell their child that ANY mom with kids is okay, just ones that look presentable and from our own class. No doubt we would steer our kids clear of some mom who looked rough even if she had several kids (especially if those kids also looked rough). Which brings me back to my point. If the issue is truly about class and trustworthiness, then why shouldn’t we tell our kids that they can also trust a dad with kids so long as he’s presentable and looks safe appearance-wise? Needless to say, this is a complex question that demands continued reflection. Thanks for posting.
Wow, a lot of great discussion here! And so many wonderful perspectives.
To me it all boils down to this — as a mom, it is my job to ensure my daughter’s safety. Articles and discussions like this one are eye openers and food for thought…. they can make us aware of some of our biases and unfounded fears; and help us broaden our horizons. At the end of the day however, we need to listen to our gut and do what it takes to keep our kids safe. There is no one way or the other that is absolutely right or perfect. We just have to take what we can from the different perspectives and incorporate what we feel is good into our own parenting, without compromising our instincts/gut feelings in the process!
I think this is a really important point too, Jon! I totally agree — the way men and dads are perceived in our society is a big problem. I do teach my daughter that dads are generally safe too. 🙂