Arts & Entertainment
FAMILY FORUM: Is the World Safe to Explore?
On perimeters parents set for their children.
Last week and the topic of child safety as utmost importance to parents.
Our first order of duty as parents is to keep our kids safe. There’s a huge industry that preys on parent’s fear factor and why you need to buy every safety instrument on the market.
Parents battle the unrealistic tendency to want to throw our kids into a bubble. It’s not a question of will the bubble be popped – it’s a question of when. Like us parents, children will have to go out and brave the world and like us, will come back with their fair share of lumps.
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Tonight at , author and columnist, Lenore Skenazy will give a free lecture about the topic in her book and blog “Free Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self Reliant Kids (Without Going Nuts with Worry)” and brings up a most important topic: namely, are we overprotecting our children?
Granted, having a child can be like prescribing a heart attack a day. Building confidence in your children to trust their own instincts and having faith in your parenting skills to know how to best prepare them takes time, trust and lots of faith and prayer!
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In “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982), a newly single parent is raising three kids (one teenager, two kids 10 and under). The mom is rarely home. One day, 10-year-old Elliot gets sick, and she leaves him home while going to work. Could you imagine? “See ya sport, tissues are on the table, there’s food in the fridge, feel better, gotta go.”
It seemed back in the day, the parents set some ground rules – be home before dark – and let their kids roam free in the streets.
Skenazy, who has been questioned as “America’s Worst Mother” on major television networks, states on her website (http://freerangekids.wordpress.com), “Free-Rangers believe in helmets, car seats, seat belts — safety! We just do NOT believe that every time school age kids go outside, they need a security detail.”
This rings home, for if I leave my kids outside right on my front lawn for a minute so I can go to the bathroom or grab a drink, I’m riddled with fear, panic and waiting for social services to knock on the door, even if my kids are in ear shot.
As children get older and a bit more aware of the world around them, will parents expand the perimeter and send them off to a neighbor’s house by themselves?
Skenazy further states, “Children, like chickens, deserve a life outside the cage.” Does this statement ruffle your feathers?
Is the world a safe place for our children? What is the appropriate range?