Independent American Girl
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It seems as though a huge controversy was stirred by a New York columnist who wrote about the fact that our kids need more independence. She handed her 9 year old son a metrocard, a subway map, some quarters for pay phones and a $20 bill and told him to make his way to Bloomingdales. He made it to Bloomingdales safe and unscathed and brimming with sense of independence and accomplishment. The columnist however was lambasted with criticism after she wrote about it in her paper. You can read more from Rosa Brooks in the LA times about letting children “Go Outside and Play” here.
It made me think about my own childhood. My brother and sister and I walked 2 miles to school and back every day, starting when I was about 7 years old. Unaccompanied by an adult. We wandered the miles long “Streamside Walk” that rambled through our town - just us kids. We stayed out playing tag and hide and seek in the streets until it got dark and we were shouted in by our Mum. These are some of the greatest memories of my childhood, and I am sure most of you have similar ones.
Now I can not agree with putting a 9 year-old on the Subway. I think that’s a little extreme. But as Rosa says, the chances of your child getting in a serious car accident are higher that the chances she would get kidnapped. So why are we all so resistant to letting our kids play outside… alone. I think the real issue is one that Rosa did not mention in her article… parent peer pressure. Let’s face it, we all know the maturity level of our own children. Your child who is 12 may not be as reliable or independent as the neighbours 9 year-old. But isn’t that up to you as a Parent to decide? I remember when Emily started 3rd grade and was riding the school bus for the first time, she felt grown-up and independent. I walked with her the 500 feet across the neighbourhood to the bus stop for the first week and then she asked me if she could walk on her own. I let her. Based on the reactions of the other parents at that bus stop you would have thought that Emily was now hang-gliding to the bus stop every morning. I actually had one parent approach me and question my parenting skills!
I believe that our job as parents is to teach children the skills they will need when they no longer have us to walk beside them to the bus stop. The first time Emily goes on a business trip I don’t want her to get stuck at the airport having a panic attack out of fear of traveling alone like one of my young colleagues did when I worked in corporate. Yes of course it is our job to watch over them, make sure they don’t get majorly hurt but it is also our job to teach them independence and confidence. The world is a scary place, but let’s not make our kids terrified to live in it.
I’d love to hear your opinions on this one. What is your strategy for raising an indepent American girl?
This one is a real thought provoker! As parents, we want to keep our children safe, so our instincts want us to wrap them in protective cocoons and keep them away from harm. And yet, we know that we can’t always be there to protect them. So the best we can do is try to give them the skills they need to survive in this world. I think part of the problem is that the media hype “the bad things” to such an extent that we become paranoid about kidnappings, murders, rapes, etc. We need to try to keep these in perspective. But it is SO HARD to do that! Especially as the mother of young girls. For my own 2, I try to think of the skills they will need to survive when I am not there and how to grow those skills in them. I was thinking:
1. Instincts to know who is good and who is bad. This is probably the toughest one — there are no external signs, this is more of reading body language and verbiage to determine the trustworthiness of a person. It’s more an art form than anything else and how do you teach that?
2. Being aware of their surroundings. If the area feels or looks unsafe, leave it. Yet avoid paranoia with this one. I think I’ve managed to instill this a little. We live near an elementary school and they won’t play there when the teenagers are hanging out there.
3. Combat skills. I can think of no other way to phrase this. They are little girls so I want them to have the knowledge to enforce that no means no. I want them to know some form of martial arts so they can protect themselves. And even, and I know this is controversial, be familiar enough with firearms. Do I want them to carry a handgun? NO. Especially at their age. But on the same token, I want them to understand how guns work, how to handle them safely and not be afraid of them as an “unknown object”. Intimidation is a terrible thing. Knowledge is power.
4. Knowing that it is OK and a wonderful thing just to say “HI” to people you meet. So many parents teach their kids not to talk to strangers. That’s ok, but I’ve seen people take that to the point of screaming at the child for saying hello to a passing bike rider when the child is standing with the parent on the front porch. After all, we are all strangers until we meet. How do you expect your child to make friends? So I instill in them a sense of personal space. There is an area around you that a stranger should not enter into. IF they stand outside that space and say “hello” that is fine, but if they get too close and invade your personal space, then RUN, SCREAM, ETC. The area of Personal Space is different for strangers or friends or family members.
5. Knowledge is power. This covers a LOT of ground. Nothing else builds self esteem more than knowing.
I suppose there are some more but right now I have to go get my 2 up and ready for school. I’d love to hear what other people think!
Sarah
Thanks for your obviously well thought out and well written comment. Your suggestions are great and some good advice. The only one I just can’t agree with is the handgun piece - but I also think that is definitely a very personal choice.
Lisa-Marie
One further thing that needs to be clarified is the self defense classes. Children need to be taught that those great moves only work on people near their own size and weight. Our girl scout troop had a really neat safety class with a group of police officers. Some of the girls were kind of cocky that they would be safe no matter what because they knew all these great karate and other types of martial arts moves. The woman officer asked them to demonstrate on her. She showed them (and all of us) that it was impossible for a child to take down an adult with one of those. This group recommends raising a LOT of noise and RUNNING if possible. IF the person is trying to prevent you running, to strike certain painful areas of the body. But most of all to SCREAM, HOLLER, YELL, make as MUCH noise as possible. Blow a whistle if you have one, etc. Basically, you want to attract attention. This group has a major concern that children have been given a false sense of security sometimes that could lead to them being endangered because they don’t realize that they should RUN from the situation. It was a real eye-opener for a bunch of the parents!!
I wanted to make sure that I raised this issue because a false sense of security could lead to problems and this wasn’t clearly stated in my original post. The classes are more for their ability to handle people their own size/age and my own sense of well-being that they can handle people who fit that category. I also want them to recognize when they need to run and raise the alarm.
I have to enjoy the irony of all my postings. I hope everyone reading them noticed it also. The original message wanted us to discuss instilling freedom and self-assurance in our girl children. Of course, all the follow up postings dealt with our paranoia of trying to keep them safe in today’s world.
I look at my two nephews. OK, Danny lives in the relative “safety” of the countryside and has roamed far and wide forever. Yet, Dylan shares a city suburb life like my two girls and yet, he has roamed the block alone on his bike to go visit his friend for ages. My kids can’t play at our school next door unless with an older neighbor child. When they walk kitty corner to their friend’s house across the school field, I watch out of the upstairs window and they call me when they get there. And yet, the friend is allowed to walk to our house only with her dog while talking on the cell phone so I know they consider me to be a lax parent!
When they got off the bus from the summer school program at the school literally in our backyard, their friend’s grandmother would walk them over to our back door if I wasn’t there to meet the bus. She is older and used to live in an inner city area, so I could understand her feelings and made a point of trying to meet them to save her the walk!
And yet, I think of myself at Becca’s age. At 10 my brother, male cousin and I would ride “around the block” — literally around our entire spread out village. We would roam up the abandoned railroad tracks for miles and tramp through the woods. The closest friends lived blocks away and we would ride or walk there every day. The next closest kids were also blocks away from them. And yet, my mother let us go. Part of it is the area in which we live — rural country vs. heavily populated suburban area. And yet, have people REALLY changed that much? Or have we just developed a mass paranoia as to what is considered “safe” for a child, especially for a girl child?? And how to we give them the skills they need to survive on their own if we are continually afraid to turn them lose — from our own fears of what might happen AND/OR from the condemnation of other parents?