Free-Range Kids

I heard about the Free-Range Kids blog and book a while back but finally got around to reading the book over the last couple of weeks for a book club discussion.  The book and discussion have inspired me to try and really make an effort at giving Penguin Girl age-appropriate freedoms that my mom thought were perfectly fine for me when I was little.

Last Friday the FedEx man asked me to sign for a package for our next door neighbors.  Later in the day, I put the small but heavy package into a wagon I use for gardening and sent Penguin Girl off on her own to deliver it.  She handed it off to the neighbor girl who is in 9th grade and was admonished not to talk to strangers on the way home.  I had to laugh at that since the trip home is so short.  I don't know who the neighbor girl thought might be lurking between our houses.  I also found it interesting because this very common warning is highlighted in Free-Range Kids.  Our kids talk to strangers all the time:  other parents at a park, adults at school who are not their day-to-day teachers, cashiers in stores, and so on.  What should be impressed upon the youth is that polite, benign conversation is fine but don't go anywhere with a stranger.

Today we went to the large library with 3 levels in the next town.  Our town library is basically one big room.  I sent Penguin Girl off to search for books and DVDs in the children's section while I browsed on the lower 2 floors.  This was actually the first time I have not stayed on the same floor with her.  She said she came looking for me when she was done but couldn't find me so she went back up to browse the DVDs since I said I'd come back up to look for her.  Good job, Penguin Girl!  Then we headed over to the supermarket.  I gave her the choice of shopping with me or sitting at the Starbucks inside the market with one of her library books.  She chose Starbucks.  Yeah, I'd pick sitting in a coffee shop reading a book over shopping for dinner ingredients, too.

I wonder if the guys working in Starbucks felt like I was using the space for free childcare.  At the book club discussion, it came out that we moms, who are aware that we are overly protective but are interested giving our kids more freedom, are rather self-conscious about what other people think and concerned (rightly so) about getting in trouble over free-range parenting.  One mentioned that she's comfortable leaving her kids in her locked car for 30 seconds while she ran in to shove a box into the package slot at the post office with her kids in sight the whole time.  But she doesn't because she thinks someone else would see her and call the police.  Which would totally happen in our town.  I'd let Penguin Girl walk home from the school bus.  It stops at the end of our street, which ends in a cul-de-sac so there is no through traffic.  But I've been told by the bus driver that they want someone to meet the bus until the kids are 3rd graders.  I wonder how much red tape there would be to get past that rule.

Car Guy says he thinks that some kids are just by nature better suited to be free-rangers.  He means Mr. Destructo who put his own shoes on this morning, went into the garage by himself, and got almost all the way up onto Car Guy's motorcycle.  As opposed to Penguin Girl who will ask permission to get into her crafts bin.  Maybe.  But if that's the case, even more reason for Penguin Girl to do some free-ranging.

Inspired by both Free-Range Kids and Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, I'm next going to show Penguin Girl how to use cutlery on her own.  Car Guy thinks it's too dangerous to have her cut her own food.  We'll just start out when he's not around . . .