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
The last two comments need to be switched around. Sorry! But I just can't risk my children's safety to prove a point. They can grow up and mature within the safety of my eyes.
This is almost the craziest thing ive heard im a borderline overprotective mommy i wouldnt leave my kids in the back yard alone let alone a public park, its to dangerous my mother would let us go to the park every weekend and she would park her butt right there on the bench infront of us and watch us play untill on of us got hurt or needed pushed on the swings and thats how i am with my kids i sit with them in front of the apt when they play as i trust NObody, I take them to the park about 2 or 3 times a week and i sit right there on the bench while they play untill they ofcourse need something but i would never leave a child alone at the park thats grounds for CPS dont parents know thats neglect and id be danged if my kids were in the system but these hippie moms think otherwise hopefuly these young moms dont do this, and whats that about her being against breastfeeding im all for it if you can do it as long as it stops at a decent age and child seats are needed in the car my kids will be in them untill they are probably 10 because they are small like me as a child lol i didnt reach 60lbs till i was 12. Thank goodness those laws werent in effect when i was little lol.
Didn't even finish reading this article. Its just stupid. No "good" parent in their right mind would let their child play unsupervised at a park where anything bad can happen. Sorry but I keeping an sharp eye on my daughter at all times like any good parent would. I understand that she needs and wants to be alone but she has that in the safety of her own home and in her room where I know she is safe. No way am I going to let my precious daughter or any of my kids in that matter play at a park unsupervised.
ok if I ever became stupid enough to want this(which I never ever would) I could just pay myself 350 to leave my child at the parK! There is so much wrong with this..where to start? does she think we live in a fairyland where bad people and bizarre freak accidents don't happen? I can understand wanting a child to learn free play and a bit of independence but as parents it is our responsibility to protect them and Watch them as they venture out and explore, play, discover things. Not turn our back on them! It only takes a couple seconds for something bad to happen! If she was really sincere about letting them do their own thing while she wasnt close by, she could have offered to AT LEAST find a bench far away but still in sight of the children and maybe even have binoculars?? I don't know..