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Please, my sons are all in their 20's now (and worked as lifeguards during school breaks, as they are excellent swimmers). They enjoyed a free range childhood, and if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.
-Parents, do you let your kids roam free on their own? Why/why not?
-Did you roam free as a kid or not? How do you think that affected you?
-Do you think society is becoming too paranoid about their kids getting snatched up, etc.?
-Are different demographics more tentative about this than others, ie. is it a city vs. suburb vs. country thing?
-Other relevant thoughts on this subject?
-3 kids...5 and under....not yet...too young, would get hit by a car. No concept of cars+little kids=game over.
-Yes...but I had really crappy parents who didn't care what i did. Luckily i was pretty smart as a kid and never had any serious issues. My city was very safe and i tended to stay in one part of town. I also rarely had clothes on (according to many people i've met over the years that remember me as the kid who was always naked).
-Yes...you would think there were perverts on every street corner, rapists hiding in the bushes and terrorists ready to bomb at any moment, anywhere.
-no idea...I grew up in the 80's/90's... back then most of my friends could run around free, but most had curfew, dinner times, etc... my town was almost all white, with a small population of hmong...
-With cellphones, digital cameras, gps...today should be way safer. Might be more cars on the road, but today there are bike lanes. I think being smart about it (as a parent)...setting rules (don't go further then x point) and times you must be home...no stealing beer from Tony 2 toes...etc etc.
Great pic! Alas, we have a pet. A male collie who is not a barker but quite protective of the kids. Even having a Doberman many years ago, our dog was more of a lover than a fighter and never a barker. Sigh, we've always have had mellow dogs although if the family was threatened, not sure what they would do.
Mastiffs are also super sweet and very mellow. However all they have to do is look out the window or bark once and even policemen high-tail it
OUr kids have walked our mastiffs since about age ten. It is not about being big enough to "control" them you control them with willpower not strength. They weight 150 - 200 pounds. The kids and the dog just need some training. When we lived in the city, we only allowed them to walk around if they took one or both of the mastiffs with them. It tended to keep any gang bangers several blocks away.
Please, my sons are all in their 20's now (and worked as lifeguards during school breaks, as they are excellent swimmers). They enjoyed a free range childhood, and if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.
I'm glad they're all doing well.
I can tell you, if I had a dollar for every time someone on CD told me my kids would end up sleeping under a bridge b/c of something I posted on CD, we could all go out to lunch! So I hear you.
Once again, I wasn't leaping to conclusions. If you re-read your post, you said nothing about the doberman being from 20 years ago. Just like you admitted that your other post was not clear. I have no idea what your posts really mean. I just read what you type and assume that it all goes together.
I just wanted to know if you let a 13 year old walk a doberman. If so, I'd think that would be possibly dangerous for other pedestrians (me being a 20 year dog owner and knowing how dogs act around other dogs or pedestrians sometimes).
This is the second time that you've told me that you've been reading my posts and have made conclusions about me based on them. Stop following me around. :P
If you want to do stuff with your kids then do it. Just don't be touchy when other ppl think it's weird. I wouldn't be touchy if you thought I was super protective or too nurturing. Que sera sera. Who cares, right? If my comments are getting "tiresome" then stop reading them. Easy fix, right? You take a chill pill.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linmora
My goodness, you leap to conclusions pretty quickly my dear. No, my doberman story was 20 years ago way before kids and when my husband and I were first married. We now own a lovely male collie who is quite mellow and well behaved. I believe I stated that earlier but was lost amongst all the other posts a bit earlier. A bit off topic but I grew up around dobermans and they are a lovely breed. In fact, my parents would let me go running with our dobbie all the time when I was just 12 or so. The dobbie that my husband and I owned didn't bond to my husband for some reason. He always prefered me. We bought a collie as a compromise many years later of being dog free. Fortunately, the collie really loves my hubby so all is good in our household with regards to dogs. Way off topic but needed to say something about my beloved childhood doberman.
From your posts, I'm getting the feeling that you are quite judgemental on other parenting styles. As my daughter likes to say, "Take a chill pill." I think that most parents on this board do have their kid's best interests at heart, in spite of differences in parenting styles. Some comments you have made lamenting other parenting styles is getting tiresome. We are all trying our best.
Obviously if I had a bull mastiff like the picture coldjenkins posted earlier, I probably wouldn't let my 13 year old daughter walk the dog. Heck, I would be afraid of controlling a dog that size. Or if I had a particularly aggressive dog. In fact, the meanest dogs I've encountered in our neighborhood have been the small yappy kinds that like to nip. It all comes down to what you are comfortable with as a parent.
Long story short:
-Parents, do you let your kids roam free on their own? Why/why not?
-Did you roam free as a kid or not? How do you think that affected you?
-Do you think society is becoming too paranoid about their kids getting snatched up, etc.?
-Are different demographics more tentative about this than others, ie. is it a city vs. suburb vs. country thing?
-Other relevant thoughts on this subject?
Do I let my kids roam free? Yes to a point. The limits and range changes as they get older. We live in a very small town and are surrounded by a combination of forest and farmland, when they are around 6-8 they are limited to the section of town we live in (the town is almost split evenly into 4 sections by two "main" roads). By 9-11 they get the entire town, but can only cross the main roads at certain spots where the traffic really slows down and there is very good visibility. By the time they are 12 and older, they have pretty free range of anywhere their legs and bike can carry them. Of course their individual maturity levels play into when they get these "steps" but the above is a rough guideline I found works well for them. If a younger son is out with an older son, then they are limited by the older ones "freedom" level.
Did I roam free? Yes, very free ranging. We lived about 5 miles outside of town (same one I moved BACK to in order to raise my own kids in a uber-safe place) and I was riding my bike into town by 7 or 8, by the time I was 10 I was stopping by a farm on the corner a mile or so from the house and doing odd jobs for an hour or so to raise enough money to pick up a box of 22 shells when I got to town, so I could go out back into the woods and shoot during the day. The sport store owner had known my Dad since he was 5 or 6 and knew it was OK for me to buy the 22 rounds. I would leave right after breakfast and not return until supper all summer long. By the time I was 10 I was going out to the woods and camping by myself for a night or two as long as I told my Parents where I was going to be out there and when I was going to be home.
Do demographics play a role? I believe so. Every kid I know in this area has pretty free range, but those parents I know in larger cities (and it doesn't have to be much larger) have much stricter restrictions on their kids freedom. It would surprise me if rural kids didn't have more freedoms than urban kids, just due to the nature of each place.
I live in NYC. When I was younger, I lived in an apartment building in Brooklyn, and then at the age of 9, I moved to Staten Island, which is more suburban. When I lived on Staten Island, I was able to walk a few blocks to school by myself, and then a couple of years later, I walked to the city bus stop to get to middle school.
I don't think I would've been able to do that in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn. Just the crowds themselves make it more intimidating for a younger kid (say, 10 years old), because it's easier to get lost, plus, there was also a higher chance of running into some weirdo on a side street or something. Of course, I was older on Staten Island, so it's a hard comparison, because I don't know what effect my age had on that perspective.
Out here, I've seen kids who looked as young as 7 or 8 riding the city bus home from school, but it was just for a few blocks within the neighborhood.
I grew up pretty much "free-range" yet parents were strict on some things.
I think because we did things like explore abandoned old houses and those old one-room school buildings, take horses out swimming and decide to race them -- which meant horses running out of control and us hanging on as they galloped back home, or getting lost after dark and finding our way back with the light of the moon, swimming in deep water with absolutely no adult supervision, finding tarzan ropes to swing across deep ravines, I don't let my kids be "free-range".
I think now that our parents didn't know what dangerous kinds of things we were actually doing, but because I know how it is, I'm stricter on my kids. They can be free-range as long as I know exactly where they are, and I have to know they aren't risking a horse's life -- or their own. They can be free range if they have a cell phone on them and will answer it by the third ring if I call them to check on them.
I cannot imagine letting them explore delapitated barns, buildings they come across and climb up on rafters or break into boarded up abandoned homes to explore them. Going swimming without supervision in some isolated lake or pond -- no way. I remember packing up a lunch and leaving the house at sun-up on bicycles and not checking in until after dark -- but it's not the way I do it as a parent.
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