Free-Range: Good for Chickens, But What About Kids?

Recently I heard an interesting debate on a talk show about “free-range” parenting.  One woman maintained that children today are raised with entirely too many limitations on their time and space, and parents basically need to lighten up and let go earlier and farther. 

She shared her experience of giving her 9-year-old son a New York City subway pass and a little money with the instructions to find his way home.  He did so successfully and as such it has fueled her passion for this not-really-so-new parenting approach. 

Her opponent, if you will, was quick to point out the most recent statistics on crimes committed against children, to which the other mother noted that the data is not significantly different than it was when they were kids. What is different, she said, was the media hype that breaks out when these crimes do occur.  As such, a case of child abduction in Iowa makes people in New Jersey feel as if the crime happened right down the street. 

Ultimately, the two came to a definition of free-range parenting they could both live with, at least for the purpose of the show.  Free-range parenting was clarified as not being about turning kids loose without boundaries or rules.  Rather, it is about re-thinking the way we are over-scheduling, over-monitoring, and hovering about our children to the point that it stifles their creativity and development.

I can live with that definition, too, but then it seems like the phrase “free-range parenting” is moot, and we are simply talking about effective parenting. One doles out privileges as children demonstrate responsibility.  Only a parent knows his or her child and what he or she is capable of, based on their maturity, personality, and the environment. 

There is no right or wrong about this one, but there is a significant amount of research that supports the need for parental supervision even throughout the teen years. The young brain is not yet capable of making sound judgment.  When young people are left to their own devices for extended periods of time without adult oversight, they are capable of making bad choices.  

While our communities may not be as unsafe as the media portrays them to be, the thinking process of a growing child is still under construction and in need of a foreman (a/k/a “attentive parent”).