You remember Lenore Skenazy, don't you? How could you forget the mom who let her 9-year-old ride the subway alone and turned the publicity into an entire parenting movement? Well the guru of free-range parenting is back with another harebrained scheme to make good parents feel bad about themselves. She wants to charge you $350 so your kid can play in the park without supervision.
Oh, Skenazy will be there for her eight-week "playgroup" ... sort of. She'll sit in a coffee shop about a block away with a cellphone in her hand in case of some sort of emergency.
From the sounds of it, the playgroup is not so much a money making venture as Skenazy trying yet again to make a point about how leaving kids unsupervised is good for them. She wants to make parents back off and let their kids have free play arranged by her because it will encourage creativity and actually get them playing.
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I'm with her ... to a point. I don't support hovering parents at all. And I do agree that today's kids are being stifled, that they spend too much time indoors and too little time actually acting like kids. In part I blame the schools that heap so much homework on kids' shoulders that there is little time for after-school play. In part I blame a society where there are two working parents who don't have time to take their kids to the park as often as they want to.
But once again Skenazy is deliberating missing the point of supervising our kids when they're playing in a park or a playground. The truth is, kids can play quite freely while their parents are in the general vicinity. Mine does it all the time.
I'm a strong believer that structured play is a problem for kids. So I let her do her own thing. I tend to park my butt on a bench and chat with a mom friend when we hit the playground. Sometimes I bring a book to read. I rarely play with her -- not because I don't like my daughter but because there is other stuff for her to do and kids for her to play with. That's the point of taking her to the park: to encourage her to have free play.
So why am I there? Well, for starters, I'm her ride to town. But I stay because I believe it's my responsibility to provide basic safety ... and I'm not talking about safety from pedophiles.
I'm there because part of free play for kids is learning to take risks. They're supposed to be thinking, "Is that jungle gym too high? I don't know, let me find out!" It's part of being a kid.
It's also rather dangerous.
Fact: little kids can't drive themselves to the hospital if something bad happens and they shouldn't have their own cellphones -- at least not at 8, which is the base age for Skenazy's little program -- to call for help if something happens. This is why it's useful to have an adult around when kids are playing; because we are handy in emergencies. And you never know when an emergency is going to crop up, because, of course, if you did, they wouldn't be emergencies, would they?
I don't need to leave so my kid will learn to have fun, take risks, get creative. She seems to do pretty well at ignoring me on her own ... until she gets a bee sting, and all that stuff in my purse makes me useful again.
What do you think of Skenazy's scheme? Would you pay someone to take your kid out for "unsupervised" play?
Image via laffy4k/Flickr
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Comments 56
BetweenCourses, exactly. I play with my kids tons at home. The playground is outside, and I play on my phone, read, or run around and take pictures of them. I don't play with them there. That's their free time.
I am more of a free range parent but that is extreme. I will let my daughter, who is 4, go outside in our back yard by herself. Sometimes I'm tempted to lock the door behind her (I kid). She also plays ponies, babies, restaurant, and Polly pockets by herself. She only needs me when she wants to play the dreaded candy land or memory. I am always happy to play games with her but the times when she is playing dolls by herself is the time i take to feed or diaper the baby, put the baby to sleep, throw in a load of laundry or cook a meal. I need my time to do mommy stuff and her alone play time is when i get the carpet vacuumed or some such boring task. When we go to the park I sit on a bench and read a book or entertain the baby in the stroller while she swings, slides, jumps, runs whatever. I'm never very far but I'm also not up her ass all day either. She is now in pre-K all day everyday and we didn't even have separation issues. Probably attributed to my lack of hovering. Also i used to be a working single mother who had to drop her off at the babysitters 3 days a week and 2 days was spent at grammie and grampie's
To the first poster- If you cant cross the street by age 12 (Grade7! ) then there has to be a disability involved. At age 12- living in a huge city, I was taking city transport to school, taking city transport across the city to visit friends. Taking my bike everywhere until i couldn't petal anymore.
At 8 years old, if the child has the capacity and maturity, there is no reason why they can go play at a park by them sleves. I have a school park about 2 blocks away and yes, kids get to play there by them selves!
Kids need to be away from the parents to learn to make decisions. Kids can get hurt regardless if you are there or not- and chances are they can come home or to where ever you are and seek assistance, as well as if you have done your job and TAUGHT them- they can seek help in other ways- going to a near store, having a cell phone, ect..
People in Ny will pay to do that, hehehe!!!!
I am a casting booker for a national, daily, talk show based in NY. For tomorrow's show (Thursday 9/13) we are looking for a mom in the NY area who believes in free range parenting and will back Lenore's theories. I like Goobieville's post, for example, and would love to talk to her, or people with her same opinions. Please reach me at Christiembear@gmail.com for more details.
Thanks!
so stupid! i live in an apartment complex and the playground you can literally see if you step onto my back patio, BUT my son isn't allowed there unless I am out there with him. He is 6. I'll park a chair on my back patio and keep an eye out for fights or make sure he doesn't wander off, but there is no way he will go there by himself, even if i can walk out and check on him every 5 minutes, who knows what will happen in the time between. If there is an accident, i can get there quicker if i'm watching. And make sure no weird people come by stealing kids.