Kids not allowed to do... anything

[Wtfisgoingon2021]

Name changed as know I will probably get flamed for this.

But I just feel like no one allows their children to do anything anymore.
They will have zero resilience.

All of my children's friends sit in their rooms on Xbox's cause the parents don't want them to be out playing.
They all get driven to the local school, which is a 10 min walk and their is not even any parent parking.
My eldest is 13 and if she wants friends round it's to be 100 messages with the parents as if I'm arranging a play date for a 3 year old.
We live a short walk from the cinema with one road to cross again my 13yo allowed to go with friends and her 3 friends not allowed must be driven in someone's car.

They are only a few years off leaving school and they can't even place an order at McDonald's themselves. (I worked their moons ago and there was nothing more frustrating than young teens who had no idea how to speak for themselves or use money!!)
It seem they are being done a great misjustice and I'm constantly being made to feel a shit mum for trying to empower and grow confidence in my child.
Honesty does anyone relate to me ??

@Moonface123

I was, and probably still am, one of the most relaxed parents in my group, , l was brought up that way myself, and never any bother, and yet my second young teen development an anxiety disorder. I think it had more to do with the sudden death of his Dad when he was 8 years old, or maybe not ? People parent as they seem fit, it's a hard enough job without others constantly scrutinizing and judging. What l will say is that things can change very quickly during the teen years and you may have to adapt your ways of parenting to work with whatever situation your up against.,what works today for you now, might not work tomorrow , or in the future. I am quite relieved my eldest is out of the teenage years now, and my second one isn't far behind. It's a bloody minefield.

Yes this.👆 It’s easy to judge but you don’t know what families maybe dealing with, or what may have happened to them in their past.

And you live and learn as a parent, you may think you’ve got it sussed now OP, but you aren’t through the woods yet!

Not here.
Dd2's just back from a sleepover she organised with no input from me.
Ds is somewhere out with friends, probably football at the park.

Do often drive them, but that's because public transport from here only goes to two places, and us very expensive, even for u16s (2/3 adult fare)
If they're going to place it does go they normally take the bus unless I'm going anyway.

Where I live has good public transport and at certain times of the day there are absolutely hoardes of y7 upwards looking pupils going to and from school with no parents in sight. Kids at the school DH works at wouldn’t be caught dead being dropped off or picked up by their parents after year 7.

Not my experience at all, kids are a bit older now (16/18) but from age 11 (secondary school) they went to the park to meet friends, have McD etc alone, take bus back home

We’d car share for cinema as no bus going there

But it sounds very restrictive where you live

Bad luck?

Or are parents out of the habit now, post covid? With their kids not having gradually developed a bit more freedom?

Hmmm. I think it depends on the kids/area/parents. My 12 year old (we live in London) independently travels to school on public transport, has a debit card that she regularly uses, is able to meet up with friends with minimal parent involvement- usually just a quick text to check we all know the plan. She and her friends went to the cinema the other day and got the bus home. Whilst obviously kids need to be careful, and there need to be boundaries, I do believe they need to be allowed some freedom!

That is most certainly NOT what all kids are like.

My DD is just turned 13 last month. She can build flat pack furniture, use a drill , put up a shelf , wall paper and paint etc. She and her friends often make the 18 mile journey into the nearest city by bus/train and go for a Chinese while they are there. She is a wonderful your lady. Do I give her a lift to school occasionally? Sure. But why wouldn't I if I'm not busy?

I think the error parents fall into is going 'But he/she is too young to do X', whereas I feel as a parent you should be thinking 'They will need to be able to do X in a year or two, how can we work towards that?'

And it can be scary. I speak as someone who was hit by a car when I was 8 because I was daydreaming. And with a son with ADHD, but he will be going to secondary school in just over a year so I have to get him used to walking and road crossing without an adult.

Your experience is certainly not mine. Mine walked to school from Yr5 onwards, arranged their own sleepovers etc. They started going to our nearest town independently by bus from about 12 - most of their friends did the same and they didn't always travel together. Pickup by car was sometimes needed, but that was due to buses stopping at 5 pm round our way, and also being incredibly unreliable. Meetups at local park or playground also pretty normal from young teenage years onwards. Maybe you live in a bubble with a lot of helicopter parents?

I think the op's experience is unusual.

You have the wrong friends, I know very few people like this!

YANBU. My mother was like this before it became commonplace and I think it contributed significantly to the horrendous anxiety I had through my teens and twenties.

Tell a child at 11 or 12 that they are literally not allowed to walk down their own street alone because they'll probably be kidnapped or run over, and that child at 15 or 18 or 22 will be frightened to do everyday things out in the world that their peers take for granted.

And at a certain age my parents switched to 'I can't believe you're nervous about doing that! I did it when I was ten!' totally forgetting how they treated me at that age. End result? A belief that the world is terrifying and that everyone else can somehow deal with it but I'm incapable so I can't. Terrible for self esteem. I didn't have the life experience most people build up as children - what to do if trains are cancelled or a stranger speaks to you or there's an unexpected problem in a shop. Being told 'but obviously you do X' doesn't give you the confidence that actually doing it does. At 15 I was assaulted because despite glaring red flags I didn't want to be 'rude to an adult' and loudly tell the man to go away or similar. He didn't listen to politeness.

(I'm mostly fine now. But it took until about age 25, and I still can't go abroad alone.)

Not my experience at all. At 13, my DC were travelling by public transport independently, making their way to friends’ houses on their own, speaking up in restaurants, going to the cinema or into town (London) on their own etc.

Not my experience at all but I think it depends where you live. We live in a village and the kids are out all the time but then everyone knows everyone else. My two have been getting the bus to school since they were 11 so are very competent at using public transport and going to shops on their own. DD goes to London for the day on the train with her friends (over 100 miles away) and books her own train tickets etc. We have to do lots of lifts because of where we live but generally all the kids round here are very independent.

YANBU
I've worked a lot of customer services jobs and was always amazed at the amount of parents who rang to sort out their (adult)children's problems. Then be outraged we could only deal with the account holder.

Also my bus is delayed often at the stop outside a technical institute(we're in Ireland) because the students can't figure out bus fares or don't have a travel card.

I got so much grief from other parents because I let my eldest do things independently, that they didn't want theirs to do. And of course because, e.g. I let DD walk to school on her own at eight, her friends pestered their parents for the same.

I was by no means a reckless parent, but I encouraged independence as soon as each thing was reasonably safe, and I knew she was capable of it and raring to do so.

I understand lots of experiences are different.

For a bit more background we moved into this area/school about 3 years ago and I have only really noticed it being like this. In the previous scheme we lived at the other end of town children played out more/did more things/Wales to the local primary.

The area I live now is slightly more affluent but the kids literally get to do fuck all and I've had them round the house they are lazy and uninterested in anything bar screens.
I like my kids to get plenty of fresh air and all the kids love coming in my garden.
My next door neighbour has 3 kids. 7,9,13. Our gardens are huge and those kids didn't step foot in the garden even all summer.

I just seem to live round these kind of people o guess. I feel for my 13yo as her classmates/local kids are holding her back

@SheABitSpicyToday

I posted about what I expect my seven year old to do and was told I was neglectful because she’s independent and doesn’t need babying. It’s no wonder teenagers are so useless if this is the kind of parenting that goes on. My siblings are 11 and are so babied it’s unreal. My 7 year old can do a lot more for herself than they can. I find it quite embarrassing really.

Almost twenty years ago, I was screamed at in the street that I was neglecting my DD and they'd contact SS to have her taken away.

My crime? I gave permission for my 11 year old DD to walk to school 1/4 of a mile for the last three full weeks of Y6. No road crossing, no dodgy areas, just an easy, straight walk where I could see her out of the bedroom window for half of it.

Unfortunately, because DD was present as this random parent screamed at me (she'd waited until we were walking home together in the afternoon to come over and be the big balls having a go at me and saying she'd grab DD and call the police to come and get her), she was then so scared of being out by herself that she refused to go anywhere without an adult or her first boyfriend until she went to University.

Are there a lot of private school kids? In my mum and dad’s street all the teenagers seem to be ferried to the local private schools by their parents (even though it would be 10-15 minutes walk).

We deliberately chose to move somewhere with good public transport links to allow them independence as teenagers. My 10yo goes to the local shop alone, dealing with money herself (or with her 8yo sister). I'm encouraging her to meet up with friends after school this year. I have no intention of going near her Secondary school next year unless she wants company on her first day.. its a five minute walk (presuming she gets in).

We moved halfway through Yr5. Old school, I was the rarity in picking her up, but we lived several miles away. She would go and find our car herself though while I got her sister. New school... nearly all picked up by parents.

@RobinPenguins not private school at all!
Literally an ex council scheme
As in were council homes but now are mostly bought.

I agree. I'm always amazed at the university threads on here and on Facebook and the level of involvement parents seem to have, totally micromanaging their adult DC's through the process of applying for university, moving into halls, etc. And threads about festivals where people are asking what their DC should take, where should they be dropped off, constant messaging to check up on them. I'd have been mortified if my parents had behaved like that when I'd been a young adult. When I applied for university, my parents had no involvement whatsoever, other than to drop me off.

I've been a single parent since my two were very young and always worked full time. They've had to do a lot more for themselves and I've always given them a fair bit of freedom. Consequently there're both independent, confident young adults now who function reasonably well most of the time.

@tiredanddangerous

I know a few parents who are like this but luckily they're not the majority.

This.

DD is quite happy walking to the local shops, talking (cautiously) to responsible strangers, handling small amounts of cash and we're encouraging her now to get buses on her own, with a little help from us in planning the route.

Mind you, she is 28.

its a hard balance sometimes, but if my kids had the same sorts of freedom that I had as a kid, id probably be charged with neglect.
So many of us are bombarded and overwhelmed by news stories of bad things happening and its really hard to know what is reasonable or not.