Tiger parents move over... Now we have "lighthouse" parents... Sounds good in theory but 6 & 10 year olds should not be swimming in the sea.

[Moonandstarz]

https://www.herfamily.ie/parenting/lighthouse-parents-defend-429377?fbclid=IwAR1yaBRuSjWxI-fLm0V4iY1AZtoiSssYbSiP7o6zdyJlxMptJ2NvYb5C6a4

I’m all sorts of eye rolling at “showcase how independent they can be” when I suspect a significant number of Gen Xers reading that article (can it even be called that it’s so lacking in detail?) would recognise that parenting style as “when I was young we went out to play for hours and my parents would have little clue as to where we were or what we were doing.”

re sea swimming surely it’s entirely dependent on a number of factors (child’s swimming ability, sea conditions, knowledge of area etc).

To me it sounds like a new term term that the parents of mc feral kids have come up with to justify their parenting "style" !
Sea swimming for kidsshould always be heavily supervised

Feral is quite a loaded word don’t you think?

I am Gen X, and when I was a child lots of children were hurt and killed due to lack of supervision by their parents. I see this as lazy parenting personally.

Ha yes, first paragraph in and I'm like 'oh it's the 1970s calling'.

The sea swimming unsupervised gives me the chills.

The article completely lacks context. Is this swimming on an Atlantic coast facing beach with steep drop offs and no lifesavers, in the UK with ferocious tides, or perhaps a beach with no surf and where it's basically paddling deep for 100m straight out, with lifesavers every 50m.

Why shouldn’t 6 and 10 year olds be swimming in the sea?

I'd happily never let my children swim in the sea to be honest.

Absolutely nuts to let a six year old go swimming in the sea unsupervised.

Early eighties kid, lived by the beach, swam in the sea unsupervised a lot.
Moved to the city, first school swimming lessons they said I couldn't swim! I'm hoping it was just the lack of salt in the water.

Is this like a daily mash article? Fair enough, I'm not so slack that I let my dc go to the beach by themselves but they are allowed to play out on the street with their friends, go to the shop and walk to school on their own because I do believe they should be allowed some freedoms and that we are doing them no favours by keeping tabs on them as much as I read about on here.

@Arewehumanorarewecupboards because the kids in this article are going in unsupervised by parents who seem to be tending to other parents. I have a fear & respect for the sea after a couple of frights in my 20s, no way would my dc ever go in the sea without DH who is a much, much stronger swimmer than me.

I'd never heard of Herfamily so have looked it up.
Every single article is loaded with tragedy.

Homepage:

14 year old dies
Sepsis
Dementia
Cancer
SIDs

Laugh a minute really. It's like Take a Break but for people like those MNers who have to be fastest finger for the latest tragic news story and trolls.

Another GenX here, and we were indeed allowed to roam all over the country (and got into very dangerous situations) HOWEVER there was an exception in that if we wanted to go swimming we always had to ask permission from one of the mothers in the neighborhood, who would then sit outside and watch us swim whilst sipping a cocktail. Even back then we didn't mess around with water safety.

Labelling "parenting styles" is insane.

Yes this. Me and brother, at younger ages, would do this on holiday every year (70s and early 80s). Safe enclosed beach. Shallow swimming, deep paddling. I could always put my feet down when I stood up in the water. My parents would be on the beach but way back. Biggest danger was losing them in the crowd and not finding my way back to them after getting out of the sea.

I would not let 10 year olds and 6 year olds swim in the sea (or lake or river or whatever) unsupervised but where I live its very normal for 10 year olds to do that (even younger too but not as young as 6, but 8 or 9) so I guess that's the common parenting style here but water scares me far too much to allow that.

My parents must have been terrible. I grew up in a fishing port and from a very early age was taught the hazards around the harbour and the sea. From the age of 5, when i started taking myself to school i was allowed to roam, as were all the other children. Nobody got hurt, nobody drowned and nobody was kidnapped. We grew up to be well rounded resilient adults.

Sounds like what was normal until very recently. Now we have teenagers who are afraid to take a bus or be out after dark.

@DustyLee123 also Gen X and we did roam freely in packs. I can remember being in charge aged 10 of younger sister and niece who were 9 and 6. We did also swim in the sea unsupervised often. The beach down the road would have a dozen kids if not more on from about age 10 though usually more 12 upwards. Three children did drown one year on the sand flats. We were told about it, they were holidaymakers so it was viewed very much well they don’t understand the sea. I remember going out in a boat with two other kids for hours. It was just very standard in those days. The only time I got told off was for swimming when it was snowing and we just decided to do it. Once kids started going to the pub as older teens there was lots of midnight drunk swimming after the pub.

My kids are like this but its down to the area we live in. My eldest is alsp convinced that you get stabbed if you set foot in London, thanks to the news.
I'm from EE, we lived alone in the house/played on the street as my mother was a single mum. I grew up in a constant fear or being raped. My mum was obviously worried as I knew about these things from a young age.
There's no ideal way, really.
My grandma was 3 years old, taking lunch to her dad walking on the fields, not next to their house.... terrifying.

Anyone expecting a cool house with a beacon here??
😬

"We can't focus our attention on each individual kid, which means we have to let the other kids have their own freedom and their own space. So we're happy for the two older ones to go swimming by themselves," they continued.

Guess they are solving the issue of not being able to focus on as many dc they have, by losing a few

Well @Thesunwillcomeoutverysoon I
was expecting parents who would look far forward for their kids and watch them closely even when they were well old enough (like keeping close tabs on them when they went to uni). So 'lighthouse' seems a misnomer.