When we were kids, we rode our bike to our friends' houses...to the store...maybe even further. I rode my bike on a busy street. I walked down a busy street to go to the dime store (remember that?)...and I bought candy, not organic juice. I would go to multiple friends' houses and all my mom knew was that I promised to be home by dinner time. Oh the sacrilege. But I have to admit, when I think about letting my child do those things now, I get nervous. I get very nervous.
Our daughter is 6 now, and she is definitely spreading her independence wings. And so it has made me question myself and how much freedom I should give her, how much she needs, and how to deal with my discomfort of letting go.
We live in a very safe neighborhood. If you look at the sex offender website, there isn't a sex offender within 5 miles of us. I think we have prepared our child for interacting with strangers. We have taught her how to cross the street. She is very mature and cautious for her age, and yet, I still feel nervous about letting her go out in to the world (the world being...our street).
Why is this? I think it comes down to two things - too much information and too much judgment. I'm not sure the world is really more dangerous today than it was 25 years ago. I think we just have way more knowledge than we used to. And we judge those who don't have the same knowledge. For example, a couple of weeks ago, there was a post by the police on a local Facebook page letting everyone know an adult in a truck and attempted (albeit unsuccessfully) to lure a child into his truck after getting off the bus. There's one part of me who says, "Awesome! Thank you for letting me know. Now my child is safer." Then, there's the other part of me that thinks, "25 years ago I would have never had that piece of information and thus, ignorance would have given me peace of mind today."
Now let's just say I chose to let my daughter walk over to her friend's house after school by herself even though I knew there might be a creep in a 10 mile radius of our home. And then, let's assume she did encounter the creep. I am to blame, right? Because I was made aware of the creep via my Facebook news feed, and I chose to still allow her to walk by herself in our neighborhood.
As parents, we all try to reassure each other that we should parent the best way we know how and not worry about judgment. That's very easy to say when we are talking about kids throwing tantrums or watching TV or eating organic vs. non-organic. When we start talking about child safety, judgment is a whole different ballgame. You see as humans, when we see danger, we instinctively want to be able to rule out the possibility of that danger affecting us. "My child would never have been approached by that creep, because I'm member of the right FB page, and I monitor that page, and I would have driven my child to her friend's house to ensure she was protected." Whew. I'm a better mom, and my child is safe. But really what I also did there was say that any other mom who would have done it differently (and thus put her child at risk) is not a good mom. And we all want to be a "good mom."
So what's the solution? Our children clearly need freedom and independence to grow. It's required to ensure our children leave home one day and support themselves (that should be motivation!). I think as a society we need to be more supportive of parents who give their kids independence. We should reserve judgment for those who abused their children not for those who simply encouraged independence. And when bad things happen (because they do happen and they will happen), we should focus more on compassion for the parents and less on why it wouldn't happen to us.
But let's face it, changing society is a little out of our control. So what can we do as parents to overcome this societal trend? I think the best thing we can do is remember the adage - Don't remove the rocks in their path. Teach them to navigate the rocks. Sometimes this is really hard to apply as a parent. It's easier to protect than to teach in the moment. But if we are doing the best thing for our children, we really need to take all of our new-found FB knowledge and turn it into ways to prepare our children rather than protect our children. I will be the first to admit I don't always do this, but I'm making a resolution to focus more on the preparation and less on the protecting. And to maybe stay off Facebook occasionally too!
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