Growing independence

[Baby Phat]

Times were so different when I was growing up, and safety concerns were so different. I was spending hours and hours -- even half-days -- running around miles from home at the creek at DS's age. He's 8 now, a 2nd grader, and just become interested in playing outside at our apartments with a variety of neighbor boys. I've sorted out which boys I'm comfortable with as his playmates, and he seems to agree ... But where are the lines on being outside unsupervised, crossing streets alone, how long between checking in, going to other boys' homes, etc.?

What guidelines are you mamas and your children currently living with that work?

[sleepies]

well, i strongly dislike one of my oldest son's friends.

this boy is a big bully that is mean to everyone but my son.

he is also always breaking stuff at my parent's house.

i do not allow the friend to visit my son at "our house".

because he is distructive and he does not listen.

his other friend is well behaved and will be staying all night soon.

i don't deicde who his friends are, but i do decide where they play. and do not play.


lance can't go out alone here in my city, but when he is in his small town home (with my ex husband) he can go outside. he rides his bike all over the little town. it is only 200 people. and it is about an hour from anything. he has to "Tell his grandparents or dad where he plans to go". that is about all. it is very safe there.

he is Never allowed out after dark. anywhere.

.....that is about it.

i let him watch tv, but we block out some channels.

he sleeps with his dog :)

that is all i can think of.

[lil' love]

Like Sleepies said, I don't pick my son's friends but I do tell him which houses he can play in and who's allowed to play in our house. He is six and we allow him to ride his bike down the sidewalk a certain distance. As he grows and shows us his dependability, we let him go further.
He is not allowed out after dark and when he is out, he has to check in once every 1/2 hour.

[Baby Phat]

What about riding the bus? Anyone with kids in school have experiences to share about what age they feel/felt comfortable letting their children ride? What about walking to/from the bus stop and waiting alone?

[sleepies]

well, my son spends Mon-Friday with his father ( my exhusband)
so, he goes to school there.

it is waaaaaaaaaaay in the middle of nowhere.

we had no choice but to let him ride the bus, because of my ex-husband's work shift and he had our only car.

also. my son WANTED to ride the bus sooo bad.

he was 5 when he first rode the bus to kindergarten. He looked sooo small. i would walk him to the bus stop and wait with him. there were 4 or 5 other kids there too.

his bus carries kindergarten---highschool. SO, it was VERY SCARY to send him off.

we haven't had any issues though.. except one special ed child was out of control once and the bus driver quit....but nothing really happened.

now, since i am divorced and live an hour away, my mother takes him to the bus stop.

i have lance friday night- sunday night and a LOT on summer vacation.

becuase my ex husband is a prison guard and his days off are Tues , wednesday. so. we each get lance on our "weekends"

[farmmom]

I guess with my daughters friends I feel that if they are over at our house at least I am in control of the situation. So especially if one were destructive and undisciplined I would wonder what went on at his house and would rather have my child playing with him at my home even if they are breaking things than to have my child at the destructive child's home doing who knows what.

[paula_bear]

Call me a flake, permissive, or anything you like, but I believe my 7.5 yr old son needs as much freedom as I had at his age. Many in my circle consider my actions irresponsible, or even negligent, but I have faith in my son and I really believe the Universe is looking out for him. He is very friendly and knows just about everyone in our apartment complex. He knows that he must not leave the complex (it is on a golf course, so there is an abundance of open space.) He also knows to respect the rules (no walking/playing on the greens, etc.) He is very irresponsible in following curfew rules - he notoriously arrives home more than 15 minutes late, which results in losing his priveledges the following day. We have agreed on these consequences.

I do not try to micro-manage his activities by insisting that his friends play at our house as oppossed to vice versa. My son has enough sense to know what is acceptable behavior regardless of what passes elsewhere. Personally, I feel that these attempts to "control" are very harmful to the child and stifle his/her growth.

As far as crossing the street, when we lived in a city, he was allowed to go around our block in a big circle, but not permitted to cross the street unless a crossing guard was present. (There was a city park across from us, but I did not allow him to go there without adult supervision under any circumstances.) I waited at his bus stop before/after school for the first week and respected his wish to thereafter to "do it himself." I try to give him as much freedom and responsibility as he can handle and as is appropriate for his age and maturity level.

I have made one rule pertaining to other boy's homes - a parent or responsible adult must be present. In the age of latch-key children, I think this is an important safety issue. I do not restrict his access unless there is a safety issue involved, even if I do not like the friend or the parents. I always get to know the other child's parents and I always ask them if they have any firearms in their home. (My cousin was accidentally shot and killed by his best friend at age 14.)

Other than that, I try not to make a big deal about it. I try to make my son and his playmates feel comfortable in our home by offering food/drink, engaging them in conversation for a few minutes, and then leaving them do their own thing. I don't think the world is worse now than when we were growing up. Our perceptions have been changed, much thanks to negative media attention. (We hear about every horrible thing that goes on and rarely about anything positive.) I also think we have lost that sense of community. My mother knew that while we may not be in her direct sight, the other mothers in the neighborhood were looking out for us. Perhaps we can all do our part to foster that in some way in our neighborhoods. This means letting go and allowing another mother to discipline your child, something many are reluctant to do these days. I think children can benefit from exposure to other discipline styles, as long as they are non-violent.

Well, I think I've gone on enough. Good luck!

[farmmom]

As far as the bus rides. My child rides the bus with K-12 too. I guess I never worried about that much since my husband and I are both from small towns we never realized that some kids were separated by grades on the bus.

But now I see the disadvantage. Fortunately, living in a small town we also know most of the other kids that ride the bus (and the bus driver). We tell our child to sit with kids her own age. Things have definitely come up. The bus is where our child learned the "F" word and "the finger". We talked about it with her, she was bound to learn it somewhere anyway.

On my dd's bus it is a big deal to have a snack. Maybe other busses do not allow this. You don't want to be the kid whose parents never send a snack with. And you have to have enough to share with a few other people. I think this keeps the little kids out of the high school kids way too.

If you are worried about you child on the bus, I would send them with some good games like a string for Cat's Cradle, paper and pen for tic-tac-toe and hangman, etc... Then I think they would be so into what they were doing with their own friends they would ignore what the older or wilder kids were doing.

And as far as sending them to other friend's houses. I guess we only have one we have never wanted to send our child to, and thankfully the friend in question has always wanted to come over here anyway. This particular one has a few dogs at their house, all very aggressive. The girl's mom recently told me she can "barely get near them myself, they are just ferocious". Yikes.

[Baby Phat]

Thanks for the ideas.

What other things besides asking if there are guns in the house do you find out about other parents/children before you let your own kids play over there?

[paula_bear]

Well, I would definitely want to know if there was anything dangerous going on, such as physical or emotional abuse, substance abuse, sexual abuse, etc. I know this sounds awful and one rarely asks about these sort of things. Sometimes it helps to actually meet the people face to face and just trust your gut instincts. You reserve the right to limit playdates to your house if that's the only way you feel comfortable, but I think that has the potential to cause emotional and social damage to your child.

You may want to find out if the parents smoke in the home. This can be an indicator of how they act as parents, but try not to jump to conclusions. I started smoking at 16, tried to quit for the first time a year later, and didn't succeed until after I reached 30. Even though I couldn't overcome smoking, I did everything else I could to be a good mom. I didn't smoke in the car or the house, so I tried to limit the children's exposure to second-hand smoke.

The other thing, is that even if your child IS exposed to abuse in someone else's home, s/he may learn something from it. I would just leave plenty of room for discussion and try to hide your reactions initially so your child trusts being able to confide in you. For example, your son's friend Johnny lives w/ his mom and step-dad. The step-dad is verbally abuse towards Johnny. Your son tells you how the step-dad called Johnny a "no good son of a bitch." You can use this as an opportunity to talk about how Johnny may have felt, why the step-dad used such abusive language, etc.

Hope this helps,
Paula

[Raven1]

This is the great question:) I recall reading Beverly Cleary books with my son at 7 yrs old, about Henry Higgins taking the bus from his home into downtown, and thinking, "no way! I RIDE that bus every day. I wouldn't let him go it alone, not nowadays." (we lived roughly 2 blocks from the proverbial "little white house on Klikitat st.", btw.)
I didn't know then, and I don't know now, just when such allowances should be made. My son has still not riden a bus alone, but he HAS crossed our busy street numerous times alone and played in the park unsupervised(if across the st. from our house with me going out to check every 30 min. or so can be considered unsupervised.) A yr ago, based on his lack of traffic navigating skills, I said NO WAY do you cross that street alone! But in the time since, he had demonstrated his ability to safely cross again and again, so I allow it.(Often while watching from the window:)
I don't know when I will feel comfortable alowing him to ride a city bus alone(esp. in Houston, which is where we currently live, but even in Portland, it's a scary proposition!). Or go out alone/with friends for the evening. Or be left alone for 20 min. while I run to the store (have done it quite a lot, but some feel the house could burn down while I am gone and I am a terrible parent! Whatever; he feels able to handle it, we have 3 smoke detectors, and I am 3 blocks away with my cell phone. Life is inherently risky, I guess, but don't be ridiculous.) Or date. Or move out.
I didn't know until it occured when I would feel safe letting him cross the st. alone, so how am I supposed to know these other milestones? I think it is one of those things you know when you see it; when you see they are capable of it, and/or have done it a few times. Not much, I know, and I am sure many parents of adult children lay awake in fear for their offspring:)
It depends on the kid. And also, unfortunately, the "times". When I was young, I rode my bike, explored condemned buildings, played near dry wells, climbed in rotten rafters and down rotten storm cellar stairs (both expressly forbidden:), and survived to tell about it. All day, MOST days, we were running free, called to a halt only by the call to dinner. But that was rural west Texas, not urban East Tx. the 70"s, not the 90s. Does that REALLY make a difference? or is it the media propaganda which constantly informs us the worst among us, and convinces us we NEED to be "careful" and "monitored"? or am I a negligent mother because I allow my almost 10 yr old son to play unsupervised across the street at the park for a few hrs aT a time? (I mean, even in 10 minutes, some diseased individual could "snatch" him, we hera of such things all the time. What to do? Lock him in the house or trust to some degree in Divine protection/the inherent goodness or at least decency of humanity? Which life is worth living?
All in all, hard questions. I don't yet have the answers(if I ever wil, and I'm beginning to doubt it. At most, I will gradually grow tolerably comfortable with increasing levels of freedom/independence. SIGH. Kimberly, mom to Forest, 9 and 3 quarters, and Lily, 2:)