Take your child to a park....and leave them

Yesterday was "take your kid to a park...and leave them there day". It was started by a woman, Lenore Skenazy, who thought up the idea while doing some research for her book, Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts With Worry. She found that crime against children was actually down from when we were kids, but that the knowledge about these crimes was way up with the inclusion of cable television and the internet. A point my mother and friend, Kelly, have been trying to make for years.

As a parent it is very hard to just let my children go. I worry. And worry. And worry. But I also hate the fact that they will do not have the freedom and pure fun of that that I had as a child. In our paper yesterday Skenazy wrote that her two boys don't go outside because there aren't any other kids to play with and that that is because other kids are looking out the window and not seeing any kids to play with too. Thus begins the cycle.

Yesterday we took our girls and two others to a water park for the day. We all found a place to park our belongings and made sure that everyone knew where we were and what landmark we were beside. We had the girls pair up and we let them loose. My husband was the one that suggested this first. I was reluctant. I went along with it for two reasons.

1. My older daughter had already been to this water park the following week with her middle school class. Everyone paired up and went off without a teacher. She has done this for two years. She assured me she would stay glued to her partner.
2. The article I had read that morning in the paper.
   

All four girls and the two adults started out together in the wave pool. We enjoyed the waves, but soon my older daughter and her partner wanted to go down slides. The other two girls were wimpier. They weren't interested in the bigger slides. So off they split. I followed the younger girls to the lazy river. While I waited for a float they took off swimming. I never found them again in the river. I gave myself a talking to and relaxed as I floated around the river.

Eventually the younger girls came back to our belongings. I knew my youngest would do that as soon as she got hungry. She would follow the money and the money was the daddy. The four of us went to lunch and then off we split again. We wouldn't see each other for about 45 minutes and then eventually we would run into each other and head off together on a ride or ride the waves again. By the end we were all together enjoying activities until the park closed.

Could something have happened? Absolutely. Things happen in life. When I was a kid I was hanging out with my neighbors. Their mother drove to a store and left us in the car while she went in to shop. We were horsing around hiding in the back seat when suddenly the door opened and a man started to get into the front seat. He heard us and turned to the back. When he saw us his reaction was one of fear. He suddenly looked around the car and just as suddenly jumped back out. Turns out he drove the same make and color of the car we were in. His car was two cars away from where we were parked. Back then no one locked cars. He apologized and frantically ran toward his own car. We kids sighed in relief and sat back nicely in our seats as we waiting for our adult to return.

Skenazy point is that we have to let our children go to organize and plan their own activities, but that we also have to teach them basic skills for surviving. Kids need to have the ability to stop themselves from doing dumb things, to force themselves to do the right things. She says experts suggest that the one of the ways to do this is to let them have free play. Free play with other children allows them to develop internal maturity.

We gave each kid strict instructions. We talked about where our base of operation was located. We told them they had to check in periodically at the base. We reminded them of stranger danger. We let them go.

At the end of our water park day as we all got back into the car my youngest daughter said it was strange to be free. She repeated what her companion had told her as they wandered from water activity to water activity. "I have money. I'm barefoot. I don't have an adult following me while I walk. I feel so FREE."

Summed up everything quite nicely.