“Oh, wow. That school has a great playground.”
I was talking to a mom with a child just starting kindergarten. This was a few years ago and I wanted to know how he was adjusting.
“Yeah, the playground’s all right — except for all the balls!”
” . . . balls?”
“They let the older boys throw balls around the school yard, whipping them against the wall, they go everywhere. There are little kids right next to them in the playground. Someone could get hurt!”
I backed away slowly. I mean, really. In a couple short years this woman’s son would be old enough to throw a ball around with his friends. Shouldn’t he be given enough space and freedom to that, at least?
I’ve been reading about helicopter versus free range parenting for years now. I’ve been hearing about how our kids are being raised on back-lit screens and shuttled from one scheduled activity to another. They don’t get the time or space to explore their neighbourhoods by themselves and learn independence in the process. They aren’t active enough and, quite frankly, all this tab keeping is exhausting for everyone. If there was ever a question about which side I’d take, helicopter or free-range, I’d already long decided to be free-range.
But it’s not that easy.