I read this story a couple of months ago about parenting styles and "helicopter moms" versus "free range moms" and a related story on the issue. These articles have sparked many conversations with other moms about how much freedom do you give your kids?
I know....it all depends upon the child and his or her maturity. But, I also think that part of the "freedom" is a reflection of parenting styles. In the interest of full disclosure, I tend to be more of a helicopter mom (and Dan is even more of a hovering parent than I am!). Ironically, both Dan & I were raised with much more of a free range. I walked a mile to school by myself from about 2nd grade (it's true!), roamed the neighborhood with my bike and rode the bus to the mall with friends by 4th grade. Dan has similar experiences. But, as parents, we can't imagine giving our kids that much freedom. Indeed, we drive our kids to school when the school is only 4 blocks away. What I can't figure out is why am I a helicopter mom?
We live in a very safe, small community with low crime, and indeed, crime is actually at the bottom of my list of worries. What I worry about most is that without parental supervision, the kids will misbehave. They are not bad kids...but they definitely have a group mentality/lack of any awareness of their surroundings that makes it more difficult for mature thoughts to prevail. I have witnessed many times when one child (usually Mark) comes up with an idea and immediately, Andrew and Emily are helping to implement the idea, such as the time when Mark decided to duct-tape a saucer sled on a skateboard to create a "summer sled". They also lack awareness of their surroundings - Andrew doesn't think twice about shoving Mark when Mark is purposefully pushing his buttons. Without supervision, where is the check to make sure the bad behavior is stopped or bad ideas are not implemented? That's the point - I can't let go of my hovering.
But, the rational part of my brain tells me that I have to learn how to not hover so much and to try to expect the best out of them. So, I decided to slowly give the kids some more rope - and give the evil neighbor-lady a chance to follow-through on her threat to call the police if she sees my kids misbehave (THAT story is too long for any blog post. Suffice it to say that in this blog post and all others, she is Mrs. Evil-Neighbor Lady). Last night was my first opportunity to try to give up some of my control. I had to take Emily to soccer and there was a 15 minutes stretch before Dan would be home from work. Rather than take the boys with me and have Dan stop by the soccer field, I left them alone at home (which reminds me, I need to check the statutes to find out whether it is illegal to leave 9 year olds home alone for short periods of time). While I am sure I have a few more gray hairs over the experience, they did just fine - no injuries (to each other or the house). It is going to take a long time to break the hovering, but at least I feel like I'm trying. Slowly. While closing my eyes tight and saying "lalalalala" to keep out any possible thoughts of bad things that could happen.
P.S. The picture at the top is from Mark's camera....not the best quality, but he loves taking pictures
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