The way I see it, summer is the season of childhood. We moms have our day in May. Dads have one in June. And kids get three months to just revel in being kids.
But I woke up this morning on the second weekday of my kid's summer vacation to news that makes me sort of wish I could put a pack on her back and send her off to the next grade already. In just one news cycle, we have three horrific stories of kids killed while just being kids. Talk about a sad reminder that summer dangers are just as prevalent as summer fun.
There's the little boy killed while riding his scooter. There's the 7-year-old who accidentally hung himself with his karate belt while climbing a tree. There's the 9-year-old who suffered a fatal injury while diving in a pool. I more or less just listed the triumvirate of summer fun for kids, didn't I? Each with a heartbreaking story?
And this is why we turn around all the time to see another parent canning the classic "kid" pleasures of summer and plunking the kiddos on the couch to ride out the season. I stood at a graduation party last night talking to a dad who's about my age, and we couldn't help comparing our childhoods to those we expect our kids to have. Much of the "just come back when it's dark, kids" fun of our early days is verboten for parents in 2012.
I don't agree with locking our kids down. But that doesn't mean we should be complacent either. Just because kids have been swimming and riding scooters for decades doesn't mean we can't learn something new.
Should we be careful, aware parents? Yes. Absolutely. I use sunscreen. I don't let her ride her bike in the road. I have a dozen rules and then some about everything from strangers to strange dogs.
But if there's one thing all these sad stories teach us, it's that there's danger everywhere. We can't foresee every single possible problem. I mean, hanging by karate belt? Really?
So even as my heart breaks for the parents of the three children lost in the midst of summer fun, it's them that I will have in mind when I send my daughter out to the backyard later to cavort in the sprinkler. I won't let these stories keep my kid from being a kid this summer, but I will use them to keep me on my toes.
What about you? Do you feel like summertime fun for kids has been curtailed since you were a youngster?
Image via pasotraspaso/Flickr
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Comments 6
The kid diving into the pool was autistic and unsupervised and the scooter kid was riding on a freaking highway. The only death that didn't involve extreme negligence from the parent is the boy who was climbing a tree. In two of these scenarios it wasn't kids being kids. It was adults being stupid and criminally irresponsible. Really Danger everywhere? Maybe it's dangerous on the highway for a kid on a scooter or dangerous for an autistic boy to be unsupervised at a pool but you are just fanning the flames of paranoia.
I agree to an extent, but luckly we live in a great place. We live on a road that is a sligh hill, then the whole top is flat and its a dead end. All the kids gather at the end of the road where we live, they play just like every other kid thats ever lived on that street. We all keep an eye out for them and they know that once it hits dark that they have to all be in our yard because my niece is only 8 and has to be home then, but they will all sit on the porch and hang out till 1030-11 pm (ages 8 to 16) They run and scream and ride bikes and play hard all day. The only change from when I was a kid is that helmets are required for riding anything with wheels at all regardless of age
Ah, it just wouldn't be the start of a new season without a blog intended to terrify parents.
Agree with posters above. Oh and by the way, the past tense of hang in this case is hanged, not hung.