Don't we have to give our children some freedom sometimes?

[Blandmum]

This really isn't meant to be an inflamatory post. I don't want this to become a slanging match.

Although it has been prompted by the dreadful case of the poor child abducted in Portugal, it isn't a thread about that awful situation.

There but for the grace of god, is my feeling an that thread.

Last holiday we went to a large campsite. My kids loved the extra freedom that we gave them. They were allowed to cycle without us, and were even allowed to go to the on site shop in the morning to buy breakfast! I'm not exagerating in saying that for them , this was the best bit of the holiday. It was ggod for them

They are 10 and 7. They could have been snatched at any time. Thank god they were not. I was nervous doing this, but felt that while I have a duty to keep my kids safe, I also have a duty to give them some freedom. they need frerdom to develop. And some times that means being without adult supervision.

At thei age I was walking to school alone. They hardly have an unsupervised moment.

How to we square this circle?

Please I'd love thoughts, but not a rehash of the awfulness of the current case.

Agree with you MB. We gave our dc a little more freedom last year also camping.

That's not to say I wasn't scanning the horizon wondering if all was ok the minute they'd gone - we let them go to the camp shop and around the site a bit as long as they stayed together.

The thing I feel is that as they get older we have to let them have more freedom otherwise they'll be grown up before we know it and unable to calculate a risk to save themselves or have any savvy of their own. That would be doing them a grave disservice in the long run.

Agree MB, I remember walking alone to school and round to friends houses through alleyways etc when I was that age. We had lods of lesson about stranger danger.
I remember going on a school trip to france and while we were in town a man invited a few of us to his hotel. We were about 12 or 13 at the time, but we all knew then that it could have been dodgy.
Terrible things happen, but we have to allow children to enjoy life.
Having said that, my children are only 1 and 2 so we will see how i feel about it in a few years...

yes, I agree mb. Mine have been playing out on our street (a cul-de-sac) since they were around 4. Collectively (as a small street - adults, including those who don't have children), we all keep an eye on the children without necessarily having someone standing guard.

I have lost one of my children - I posted on mumsnet at the time. One minute she was standing by a tree while I was watching ds play football, next minute, I turned around and she was gone. I had to organise a search party of people to look for her and was seconds away from calling the police when another parent found her (think she was gone for around 20 mins). I've never forgotten that feeling.

Having said that, as dh is often not around, my two have had to be afforded a fair degree of independence because I, simply, cannot be with both of them all the time (especially when we're out and one needs the loo).

I believe they have to learn skills like these - how to think about traffic, how to navigate themselves etc. etc.

I think a lot of this depends on where you live to be honest. I recall going out on bikes with my mates unsupervised several miles out of our village. But...it was a village, we were a group etc. Would we have been allowed out in a city neighbourhood? Not sure.

My DDs are too young to be allowed out on their own but when the time comes I would like to think I'd let themgo out with friends but I would ensure they had a means of contacting me, I knew where they were, etc. So it would be a calculated risk.

MB i understand what you are saying. my dd's are hardly ever unsupervised. at dd1 age i was out playing with friends. holidays we went off a lot.

lately i have begun to wonder if i am smothering them by being over protective. but also cant help it, i dont live i na very child heavey area, its an elderly disabled area.

one reason i like campsites, smaller, cars travel slowly, park visable and they can wander more.

I have a hard time imagining my 2 DDs grown up enough to have any freedom so it is hard to answer this. They are currently 4 and 1.

When I look back at my own childhood, it was a little different. I had an older brother and there were always a large group of us playing together, and presumably, looking out for each other, especially the younger ones.

I like the idea of my children learning from a group of mixed age and older children how to negotiate the outside world. I don't like the idea of setting my two daughters out into the world by themselves to learn potential lessons.

I am fortunate to live in a cul de sac where all the children play out from 3 or 4. My 2 are now 9 and 11. DS now goes out with his friends for a while after school, usually to the local park or someones house. He has a mobile and deadlines when he has to be home.He goes to school everyday by himself on his bike (he has done his cycling prificiency) early to do revision for sats. I have seen his confidence grow so much lately and it's lovely to watch. He will have to go to school by train from September, so he needs to be ready for it.

Daughter is allowed out on the estate and has walked to school by herself a few times. Don't know if it is because she is a girl, or I don't think she is a sensible as big brother was at that age, but I feel reluctant to let her go as far as her brother at that age.

My sister and I were latch key kids from about 10 and independence is a skill I have always wanted to instill into my children.

5000 children in car accidents every year, whereas children killed by strangers numbers less than 10 , a figure that is actually going down. Over a 100 children a year are killed by their parents, which i think puts perspective on the real dangers

By not allowing children independence because a miniscule chance they may be kidnapped etc we may be opening them up to more dangers ie higher risk of car accidents because more time spent in the car. Not learning to be street wise or traffic sense therefore more chance of being run over etc.

Foxinsocks, you just reminded me of the time I nearly gave my mum heart failure.

I was about 11 and had arranged the night before to go and see a friend, but the next day another friend rang up and i agreed to go see her instead. On my way to my friends house I saw someone hanging around that I didnt like so I knocked on the door of another friend!!!

The two friends I was meant to be seeing must have rung up my house, hence my mum panicking because i had just vanished.

I rememember my friends and my sister knocking on the door and making me go home. (They had been knocking on everyones door looking for me)

When I got home my mum looked white as a sheet and was on the phone to my dad. My dad grounded me. It's only now I can appreciate what they must have thought had happened.

Yes but there is a minimum age whereby children are developmentally able to judge the speed of traffic.

the thing is I don't really see why being in a city should make it any different (apart from the traffic being heavier but often, in rural areas, the roads aren't lit as well or the pavements that well defined so it's a different sort of risk).

We've always lived in London with the children and always tried to give them small bits of freedom (though mine are too young to cross roads on their own or judge traffic).

ooh powder, your poor mother!

Yes, I know, but it just didnt occur to me then how irresponsible it was.

I also agree. My children played in the cul-de-sac when they were 6.

they went for jaunts down to local beauty spot (canal, wooded areas) from the age of 10 with a group of friends.

However we all make considered risks. and view those risks differently.

When i first took my children abroad, i never considered leaving them to go to sleep in the apartment complex whilst dh and i went downstairs and had a drink directly under our own balcony ( where the bar was) they were 2 & 5 at the time.

We have been abroad and camped in those 'luxury' Euro tents. I would never leave my children aged 10&12 at the time in those tents.

Instead they fell asleep on the chairs at the bar whilst DH & I got a little drunk.

Somewhere in there i think i probably belong in the bad mothers brigade.

I wondered whether there was a social element to this. That mid income families think that it's ok whilst traditionally lower income families would perhaps be a little more wary, having the threat of state intervention very much known to you in that circle?

Just a ponder.

despite my musings, they are my personal thoughts non transferable to the family in question. Who did what they believe was right, i cannot judge them for that and i hope to od the girl comes back safe.

I completely agree.
I think some MNers would be aghast at the amount of freedom DS and his cousins have when we are out and about in parks, lake district, norfolk etc.

Oh I agree, mb - but isn't it hard? Ds1 will be going to secondary school next year and he is so unprepared. In the last year I've started letting him go via an alternative route, on his own, when we are heading home from the shops and he goes home from school "on his own" most days (I'm actually bringing up the rear with ds2). He won't come in the Ladies' toilets with me any more so I stand outside, like a nervous mother hen, checking my watch and yelling through the door if he takes longer than I think he should.

At his age - 10 - I was playing out on my bike from morning til night - coming back when I was hungry. I didn't have a mobile phone, though I vaguely knew about reversing the charges. I knew about "funny men" and places to avoid. And we tended to stick together in a gang. But we would go miles - to various local parks, down a disused railway embankment (we were all forbidden to go there so of course it was like a child magnet).

I don't know how my generation, which had so much freedom, turned into parents who allow their children so little.

The world does seem scarier - I know, logically, that abductions are incredibly rare but there's traffic, of course - and other children seem much scarier than they did when I was a child. Children are definitely more likely these days to be mugged by other kids for their bike, phone or trainers.

So - yes, I agree - we are doing them no favours by curtailing any chance of independence...but oh, it's hard to let go. I still feel vaguely anxious when he's out of my sight in the park and as to letting him go by himself...

I'm trying...

My DD is 17 but I still worry about how much freedom to give her - do I let her go round to the park in the evening with her friends? The trouble is you can't be sure even in a 'nice' area. We live in one of the 'nicest' areas in Britain,but there was a fairly high profile murder here about 18 months ago, where the victims and the murderer were all part of the group who hung out in the local park and went to the church youth club she goes to. She could easily have been there that night if I had let her out - several of her classmates were. tbh I prefer her to go to the pub, they can't afford to drink so much there, and so far, none of her friends drive - that's the next worry - there are too many tributes of flowers by the trees round here.

Do you know, our road is full of kids playing out. It's interesting: the parents who do and who don't feel happy with this (and I strongly suspect it divides on socioeconomic lines more than anything else). I wouldn't be happy with my children doing it because we have some vile traffic, but I do for instance say happily to DD1 'go on, then, you know where the loo is' when we're out and about (I've done this in the company of other MNers) and she sets off. There is a theoretical chance she could be accosted and/or abducted on the way. I did, I'll admit, have a 'talking to strangers' conversation with her again this lunchtime.

But most people, you know, are pretty nice. We (my fellow inmates in the Inferiority Complex) were out a while ago with DP's brother and his partner, and I came across a little girl who was clearly lost. I was livid on her parents' behalf, because she was frankly a bit little to be left in the playground bit while they sat a little way away with their dog; she was around two, and as untogether as most two year olds are ('where's your mummy?' 'She's there or over there'). We helped her find them. I was livid on her behalf, but I suspect someone else would have taken her hand and helped her find them if I hadn't.

I think you're right Kerrymum - things did happen years ago. In the late 60's, when I was 11 I was followed from the bus stop (2 miles from home) by a strange young man who kept asking me if I had a boyfriend & whether I wanted to go out with him - luckily by the time he started trying to touch me, we were by someone's gate, so I went in. I later found out that the local farmer had spotted him following me and had been walking in the field next to the road with his shotgun....

About a month ago my 3 year old DS2 was watching TV in the living room with the window wide open. I was painting in our bedroom immediately above, I happended to glance out of the window and saw a man sitting on our front wall with his bicycle leaning against the wall. He was fiddling ineffectively with his bike, I suddendly saw the small distance down the steps to my little boy. I felt totally uneasy, went downstairs locked the windows and drew the blinds. I went back upstairs and watched him, made some noise and he turned to look at me for about five or ten seconds. Then after about five minutes cycled off.

I felt really shook up for the rest of the day and now always make sure that the window is shut when the kids are in the living room and i am somewhere else.

I was chatted up and molested by all sorts of dodgy types when I was a pudgy, bosomy 10 year old back in 1973

Yes you're right MB.

It is very hard though. I feel sick when I can't see DD (5) or DS (almost 8) when we're out and about and DS hasn't yet been allowed to go in the gent's toilets by himself, except one in Ed's Easy Diner which I could "monitor" because of its position.

Now he's nearly 8 I guess I'm going to have to let him soon...

I remember being whistled at by builders when we were all about 14.

Looking back now, you wonder why they had no understanding that this was utterly disgusting. We were children, FFS.

oh I'm sure powder - like you say, it's the sort of thing you look at now and think, 'what was I doing' whereas at the time, you probably didn't think twice!

MI .

I do think people talk about it more now and I don't think that's a bad thing though I suppose it can give the impression that they are unsafe everywhere. More often than not, children need protecting from adults they know rather than complete strangers .

I am amazed at the amount of freedom my two brothers and I had. We did not have a lot in the city but in the country house we'd be gone the whole day with picknic, 2 dogs and some sharp tools to cut our way through the bushes - just the three of us (from age 5-8-9me if not earlier). not only we would walk miles in woodlands, roads but swim in ponds and streams. we used to sleep in a tree house about 50y from the house.

TBH I feel fainty just to think about it. Not just because of the snatchers but the million accidents that could have happened (drawing, snakes, etc).

But then... it was the best part of my childhood. i can cry thinking about it. not only it was the best fun but made us all aware i am sure.

would I do it? I don't know. I wish I would because it's the best but I am terrified.

I will ask mym mum how she saw it.

And do not necessarily agree the world has changed. I am sure that my parents world was seen as unsafe compared to the previous generation's one.