I stumbled across the blog Free-Range Kids a while back, and have been enjoying reading it ever since. It’s really making me think: of course we want to protect our kids and keep them safe, but are there negative consequences of this constantly supervised up-bringing? Are we creating a generation of anxiety-ridden, fearful kids, with little experience negotiating the world until we send them off to college? Some of the stories on her website are shocking to me, like the one about a 10-year-old boy who was picked up by the police after folks called 911 seeing a child by himself outside. What was he doing? Walking 1/3 of a mile (a less than 10 minute dawdle) to soccer practice. Sheesh!

I know the folks who called 911 were only trying to be helpful. But it seems to me we are creating an inter-generational problem in two ways: parents are so scared for their children’s safety that kids are inside or in programs (before care, school or daycare, after care, various lessons, tutoring, camps, etc.) an awful lot, and interacting with very few adults. But this also means that most adults in our society have little exposure to kids outside their own families (unless their career involves kids, like teaching or pediatrics). The result? Kids have little experience and are often uncomfortable talking to adults (and taught that doing so is dangerous), and adults have also become uncomfortable talking and interacting with kids. It goes both ways. And when we lose that inter-generational connection, we lose perspective. In my GenX generation 10 year olds routinely walked 1/3 of a mile to school solo (or further!), or had paper and flyer delivery routes longer than that. I have a relative about a decade older than me who was a ‘latch-key kid’, and at age 9 walked home after school and took care of herself—homework, making some food, some chores or household responsibilities. Kids today aren’t inherently incapable of this.

But I’m also a parent and I can see both sides. It’s hard (and possibly unsafe!) to send your kid outside to play when no other kids are around, when no other adults are home to keep an communal eye on the kids outside. I understand why many of us parents do things the way we do. But I think we do need to start to think about the long-term implications of our so-called ‘helicopter parenting’.

The author of the Free-Range Kids blog has a book coming out soon that I plan to read; the introductory chapter is available to be read online here. My favourite bit is where she talks about how things have changed over the generations: our Moms sent us outside to play after dinner and said “Come in when the street lights come on.” Their moms allowed them to ride to grandma’s house via streetcar or bus without an adult. And their grandma’s sent their children across the Atlantic by ship with little more than pocket change. Funny and thought-provoking!