Centennial College professor Denise Schon didn’t flinch when her nine-year-old son, Michael, asked to walk to McDonald’s alone for breakfast on a Saturday morning.
“I didn’t like the idea of McDonald’s because it’s not very well-supervised,” she said. “But I thought, what a terrific experience for him.”
So instead of keeping Michael inside or driving him there herself, Schon handed him five dollars and sent him off to a different nearby restaurant.
Michael’s used to being allowed to roam. He has boundaries, but he can wander around his neighbourhood by himself for half an hour at a time. And he’s been gaining more and more independence lately. But he’s often the only kid playing in the streets of his Etobicoke neighbourhood.
“There’s no kids at home to knock on the door of,” Schon said.
In a world where many people are afraid to let their children play outside alone, parents such as Schon are challenging the idea that kids need a constant stream of organized activities. They’re choosing free play for their kids—and discovering that independence is better for their children and for themselves.
But according to Andrea O’Reilly, associate professor in the school of women’s studies at York University, Schon’s parenting style is rare. While sending children outside to play was common in the 1950s and ‘60s, she says this has changed as more and more parents enrol their kids in programmed extracurricular activities and keep them inside after school.
“In suburban areas today, you won’t see children outside playing. If you do see them playing, it’s in the backyard by themselves, or they’re inside on the Internet or watching TV, or they’re off doing something programmed,” she said.
O’Reilly blames a fear of crime on this cultural shift.
“People point to the ‘80s at the beginning of that culture of fear,” she said. “No more children are abducted today than they were in 1960. There’s no more. It’s just that we’re more aware of them through the media… It’s this hyper-awareness of danger.”
But it’s not just fear of crime that keeps parents from sending their kids outside. O’Reilly says that as over-scheduling becomes the norm, being labeled a “bad parent” can become a real fear as well.
“It becomes a vicious circle because this is the new definition of good motherhood. So if you don’t do it, you’re now a bad mother,” O’Reilly said.
New York Sun columnist Lenore Skenazy knows that fear all too well. After writing about letting her nine-year-old son ride the subway alone in 2008, she was swarmed with media attention under the headline “America’s Worst Mom?” That experience led her to write Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry). She thinks parents need to trust their own instincts and recognize the value of independence and free play.
“Between electronics and homework and extra-curriculars, there’s very little free time left. All animals play, from reptiles up. And we’ve taken it out of our children’s lives,” she said. “It’s kind of like taking out sleep or dreams… It’s a basic need.”
Skenazy believes that children learn much more when playing freely than when they do activities organized by adults.
“It is precisely the open-ended idea of play, the idea that nothing’s at stake, which makes you free-flowing. Everything is open. I can run this way, or I can make up this game, or I can be this superhero, whatever it is,” she said. “Because everything is open and plastic and possible, it makes it the greatest gift for your brain.”
She also says that when parents focus too much on safety, they miss out on the benefits that children can gain from taking small risks — such as Schon’s son Michael walking to the local restaurant and ordering breakfast by himself.
“They say, why wouldn’t you want your child to be safe? There’s nothing lost and everything gained if you put a GPS device in their backpack or if you follow them to school every day… or never let them have any independence whatsoever,” Skenazy said. “If you take them for ice cream instead of letting them go for ice cream, what do you lose? Well, you lose everything they would gain from those experiences.”
For Schon, the benefits of letting Michael roam the neighbourhood far outweigh the risks.
“Creativity gets you pretty far… It’s important to be able to think outside the box and think big in a different way and I don’t see how sports every night develops that,” she said. “I think they gain an enormous amount of confidence exploring the world on their own.”
Photo by wsilver, available under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
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