It is interesting when something you encounter in the news dovetails nicely with a thought you’ve already been thinking. Such was the case yesterday when I heard an interview on NPR with Lenore Skenazy, who wrote an interesting article called “The Myth of Online Predators“. Here’s an excerpt:
Is letting your kids go online the same as dropping them off at the Vince Lombardi Rest Stop in fishnet stockings at 3 a.m.?
A lot of parents think it is. Or maybe worse. My husband and I took our time letting our oldest boy, who is 13, start his social networking, though that was because we were worried it was like dropping him off at the Vince Lombardi Rest Stop to do his homework—we figured it would never get done. But the towering fear that the second a kid goes online he or she becomes cyberjailbait turns out to be way off base. According to new research, the danger online is teeny-tiny unless your kids are running into chat rooms, typing, “Anyone here like ‘em young?” and posting photos of themselves licking lollipops. Naked.
Recently, the lengthening days have got me thinking a lot about my childhood and how my childhood seems very different than those of children today. I used to play outdoors all the time. I remember riding my bicycle up, down and around the block. My first elementary school was three blocks from home and I was walking there on my own in first grade. In third grade I transferred to a school six or seven blocks away and was walking there on my own, too, and allowed to ride my bike within maybe a mile radius of home.
I remember my parents telling me about potential predators and what to do and what not to do. But they never sheltered me, kept me locked up inside, or refused to let me leave their sight. The result? It may be hard to scientifically prove, but I can trace my self-confidence, creativity, curiosity, independence and adventurous spirit to that shove out the screen door, that admonition to turn off the TV and go play outside.
“But things are different today,” you might say. “Crime is so much worse than thirty years ago.”
Statistically, though, that isn’t true, especially with crime against children. For more detail see this article in the Journal of Social Issues, but here are some interesting facts. Note that the statistics are current through 2006, when the article was published. More recent statistics confirm the trend.
- From 1990 to 2006, substantiated cases of child sexual abuse went down 53%.
- Physical abuse substantiations declined 48% between 1992 and 2006.
- From 1993 to 2005, sexual assaults on teenagers decreased by 52%. The subgroup of assaults by known persons decreased even more dramatically
Across the board, crime in the US is at the lowest level it has been since 1970. Source
All this gets to Skenazy’s larger point, which is that it is crazy to limit our lives – or our kids’ lives – based on fear of a wildly remote danger. It seems to be part of a growing culture of fear, something that isn’t a very beneficial development for the United States.
Somehow, a whole lot of parents are just convinced that nothing outside the home is safe. At the same time, they’re also convinced that their children are helpless to fend for themselves. While most of these parents walked to school as kids, or hiked the woods — or even took public transportation — they can’t imagine their own offspring doing the same thing.
They have lost confidence in everything: Their neighborhood. Their kids. And their own ability to teach their children how to get by in the world. As a result, they batten down the hatches. Source
The reading is interesting and thought-provoking. Skenazy has a blog and has just released a book titled “Free Range Kids: Giving Our Kids the Freedom We Had without Going Nuts with Worry“, so there is plenty of reading to do.
What were your experiences growing up? How are you treating your children and why? If you don’t have children, how are your nieces/nephews/friends’ children being treated? Smothered by overprotection or allowed to run amok with no supervision?
christao408 
I was strictly supervised and on a tight ‘leash’ while growing up in HK, which is typical in an Asian family. When I was sent to study in LA, I felt like I’m out of the ‘jail house’, and those were the happiest days of my younger days!
The internet can be a pretty scary place but when a kid gets to an age where they will be using the internet, it’s important to set boundaries and also to explain why you are setting the boundaries. A simple “no” doesn’t tend to do well with kids but if you explain your expectations of them, then they are more apt to understand and comply. My parents raised me with those things in mind. If you shelter your kids, they’re going to find some way to get around the rules you put down.
Do you think maybe it’s because the parents are keeping such a tight leash that the crime rates went down?So what might happen if we loosened the leash now?Not that I am a proponent to keeping the children from experiencing the world, but this just came into my head.
Growing up, I was free to roam the neighborhood with friends and go out as much as I can. As long as I kept up with school, my parents trusted me. That gave me incentive to kick ass on my grades. As long as kids know basic common sense, as in not talking to strangers on the streets, I would let them be free range. lol
Wow, that was some interesting read. I don’t have kids of my own and don’t plan on having any in another handful of years. But, I do find myself somewhat being “protective” of my younger sister (she’s turning 12 in June). I feel protective about the whole online thing and her roaming around in their neighborhood, which is on a military base in Japan. Yeah, it’s kinda bad and I’m not even there with them! I’m definitely going to need that book when I decide to have my own kiddies.
I guess that I was supervised pretty closely as a kid, up until my parents got divorced. My mom was real paranoid and scared her 4 boys, especially, with horrifying stories, so I was pretty scared to go out a lot. I really regret that, though, because I missed out on a lot of childhood staples, I think; I can’t ride a bike and I wasn’t allowed to spend much time away from home. College has been my time to experience freedom.
From a 90s child:When I was little, my mom would never let me out of her sight. If I ever wanted to go outside, I would have to ask her to go with me–even if it was something as simple as walking down the driveway. Being left home alone was out of the question. Now, things are completely different: the woman that wouldn’t let me out the door without supervision didn’t have any problem with letting my twiggy freshman self wander around Berlin, a city filled with fake Gypsies and hungover Brits.
Your point is well taken and under normal circumstances I would agree hands down. I had much more freedom when I was young. I considered it a punishment to have to stay in the house. My biggest worry as a youngster was the increase in traffic and the potential for a major hurt if I were hit by a car on my bike.
When my guys were young, they had similar freedoms. Until the child snatching started in the East Bay. Then things changed a bit. We were more cautious of how far we let our guys go. They still played outside, just with a bit more checks from the moms in the neighborhood. Then you have the horrible abduction, and killing of little 8 year-old Sandra Cantu in Tracy just recently. She was going over to a friend’s house! In her trailer park! Turns out the mother of her friend has been accused of the crime. Now, as a parent and soon to be grandparent I have to take a moment and think about this. My first reaction would be to keep my children from going anywhere. That is not realistic, but that gut reaction has to be understandable.
Sorry for this long post. As you can see this is a tender subject for me.
@Wangium – I don’t think that’s it. Crime went down across the board, not just in child-related crimes. Probably a combination of many factors including increased enforcement and toughter sentencing. Interesting idea, though.
Parents nowadays are really over-protective because of what we hear/read are happening in different parts of the world. Actually, percentage-wise it is not really that much. What we parents can do perhaps is to give our children some amount of freedom while at the same time remind them of their limitations. Thanks for this insightful post.
I was a child that had great freedom but also very clear limits. It wasn’t where I could go but who I could go with and when I had to be home. My sons were supervised but they were free to go anywhere in the neighborhood. I just needed o know where, when o expect then back. We never imposed curfews but did ask that they be mindful of the schedules and sleep habits of others..,
I was strictly supervised until I was in the eighth grade. I basically couldn’t walk too far down the street on which I lived or go anywhere with friends. After middle school, though, I could go I wanted to (within reason) and was trusted to hang out with the right people and make good decisions. The combination of strict supervision and complete freedom was effective, as I learned a sense of responsibility and such. But then, I lived in an uneventful little suburb with little or no crime to speak of. The environment does play a big factor in a decision like this.
@curry69curry – @TheCheshireGrins – @Rm2046 – @RedStarr5 – @secade – @moptoplop – @stebow – @Norcani – @murisopsis – @puiyenchui – Thank you to everyone for your very interesting and thoughtful responses. As I’ve never been a parent, of course I can’t fully appreciate the level of concern and worry a parent has for his or her children’s safety. It is interesting to wonder if we aren’t becoming a society that is a little too scared for its own good. Again, thanks for the thoughtful comments!
I grew up with lots of freedom and was encouraged to play outside… perhaps it was Mom’s way of having some peace and quiet. (We also didn’t have video games to distract us to stay indoors.) I remember riding my bike or rolleblades to the park a few blocks away with my sibblings multiple times a week, with no adults in tow. I also know that tabs were kept on us not just by Mom, but from our friends’ moms who lived in the neighborhood. When I think about it, growing up living in a cul-de-sac, playing in the street was actually pretty safe. Many summers were spent outside the whole day, with us whining about having to come back inside because it was dark. I also know that with how the economy has changed, and the cost of living in California, there are fewer and fewer stay-at-home moms around during the day to keep tabs on the neighbor kids like I had growing up. I honestly don’t know how protective I’m going to be as a mom. While I’d love to be able to give my child the same freedom I had growing up, I just don’t know if I’ll be able to do that.
You know, my parents have always given me complete freedom. When I look at my childhood… I realize that I was never stopped from doing anything and have always been mostly on my own. I think that has only helped me become a stronger person.
I was very glad not be be a free range kid. Our neighborhood had several kids get killed on their bikes, and our town had two murders of free range kids as I was growing up, and another one when my oldest daughter was five. I did not box them in, but I was always at the periphery wherever they were, ready to give a “very scary, cold, stay away from me or I’ll rip you apart stare,” as described by a six foot tall, 250 pound fullback acquaintance who I failed to recognize as a fellow student in some of my college classes. My girls knew that I always had their back if they could not make someone back off.
Excellent blog and lots to think about. Trusting one’s children is one thing; trusting the general public is something else entirely. The trick is to help your kids feel independent and empowered by offering life lessons as experiences occur, while always keeping a sharp eye on exactly where & with whom they are spending time. The world is not the same now as it was when most of us were growing up, and good parenting has never been a job for slackers anyway.
I had a lot of freedom too as a kid. Left on my bike and wasn’t seen again until it got dark. I was a latch key kid since 1st grade and my mom didn’t really feel the need to know where I was at all times. I had a ton of fun and freedom. Saying that, I also had a run in, personally, with an abductor who was driving in our neighborhood. He stopped and asked my friend and I who were maybe 9 years old for directions. I was standing in my next door neighbors driveway. As I started to walk closer to his car because I couldn’t hear him my friend grabbed my arm to stop me. As she did that he threw change at us out of his window. In Kindergarten, we had an old man who liked to hang around the fence and watch us and give select kids bottle caps he’d found. In high school we had a prominent male authority figure (not school related) visit the school and specifically the girls gym class to chat up the pretty and popular girls wearing short shorts. A next door neighbor to one of my best friends was a single adult male who loved to invite the teenage girls to hang out with him at his house. And this was without the internet. Growing up as a kid I had no idea what these things were or what the warning signs were. They were all around me and I had no clue. I didn’t get hurt and neither did anyone I knew. There were no missing kids in the news either. But they were all around me. And this was a neighborhood not too different than Newark.I also worked for a missing children organization and stranger abductions are so incredibly rare. When they do happen it is out of their own backyard, their front porch, at a park when the parent took their eyes off of them for 5 minutes, or just down the street while walking to a friends house. As a parent my worst nightmare is not knowing where my son is and having to live with the thoughts of what is currently happening to him. The torture while he is calling out for us to help. Going years not knowing what happened to him or if he was alive. So it is very rare and 99.99% will never happen to my children but just in case I will ride bikes with him, drive him to a friends house, or read a book while he plays in the backyard. There is also the factor of drug use and sexual promiscuity that is running at levels that we never imagined growing up. The worse we did was sneak a cigarette or our parent’s beer. As a previous therapist, the greatest prevention you have to keep your kid safe nowadays is to be deep in their business while of course balancing that with trust and freedom. Like all things I think you need to keep moderation and balance. You don’t want to instill fear and the paranoia that all of humanity is evil but you also have to keep them safe when their judgment and the judgment of others is impaired.
@alextebow – It is especially interesting to read both your comment and your mother’s!
@Dezinerdreams – I get the impression that on any absolute scale, you are definitely at the independent end! =)
@kfyeom – Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response!
@FreshStartFTM – You need to include a picture of that stare! Thanks for the comments.
@jojobaDESIGNS – Your last line is probably the most important: parenting is not a job for slackers. What a shame, though, that it is so easy for people to become parents, prepared for the responsibility or otherwise.
Personally, I grew up in a neighborhood where we all played outside all day and knew to come in when the porch lights came on. I agree on it making you a more rounded person. My kids were treated the same. We had a smaller neighborhood when most of mine were growing up, (56 houses) and everyone knew everyone elses kids. They are very social and well rounded kids, in my opinion. Then again, I am their mother…
@socaltransplant – Thanks for your comment. I really like the variety of viewpoints people have expressed on this topic.