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I'd love to be a free range parent because that's how my parents were. It's so hard though.
My kids are still really young though, so we'll see.

I think a lot of it has to do with the 24-7 news stream. We hear about every terrifying child abduction across the country. News used to be a lot more local, so you didn't hear as much and probably assumed the world was safer.

The other thing is technology. We had to trust kids a lot more back in the day, but now they have cell phones and gps tracking. The likelyhood is that something won't happen, but I think a lot of parents have the worst-case scenario pop into their head. They wouldn't be able to forgive themselves if they chose not to use something that could have prevented a tragic event.

I'd like to say I'd be a free-range parent, but I could also see myself doing everything I can to "protect" (whatever that means) my children.

@TemperanceBrennan: Yeah, I'm always thinking worst case scenario.. better safe than regret something I didn't do for the rest of my life. :T We live in Atlanta too (one of the largest hubs for human trafficking) so it makes me even more cautious!

I think there is some truth to the need for this...but the world isn't the same as it was 20 years ago. I think, though, that we do need to teach our children how to live in the world as it is now, rather than sheltering them from it. I think 20 years ago adults were used to not having information all the time. When your kids left to go play, there was no way to call them unless they were within yelling range. With information so readily available now, we feel like we have to know everything every second. And this spills over into micromanaging our lives, including our children. I do think it takes a bit more maturity to navigate the world now than it did when we were growing up, but that doesn't mean keeping our kids in little boxes either. I don't think things can be as free as they were "back then", but I also think we have overcorrected and need to let go a bit more.

I also really liked the point about the way the parents respond, by blaming the teacher instead of the kids. Children are losing the ability to think, to reason, to take personal responsibility. Parents view their kids as an extension of themselves sometimes, and therefore they don't want to admit that they make mistakes.

What a great article! I don't think I'll be as "free range" as my parents were just because the neighborhoods are different now. Cars go down our street very fast. My old street was a dead end and we were at the end. No one drove down there unless you lived there. Once my child can talk, knows her address and her name, I will let her play outside without watching her, as long as she knows she has free range of the backyard and the woods but not the street.

If we had a mass transit system here, I would make sure she knew it. Since I don't have a 10 year old, I can't say how I would do with my 10 year old riding mass transit by herself, though.

I will teach lo to be street smart. I was on my own most of my life. DH even moreso in some ways- he literally worked since age 6 and took care of his sisters and mom and only ate free hot lunch. If he needed shoes he did odd jobs and mowed lawns. I always ran free but once I was 6 my mom left my dad and stopped caring about us. I would walk miles to the end of town and go for hikes in the woods and ride my bike to the pool and walk myself to school. DH drove since he was like 8!

Anyhow, we ran free from lack of caring on our parent's part and obviously that is different from being laid back or teaching your child how to navigate the train. I can't say exactly how things will look or where we will live but either way I will teach lo everything I can about street smarts.

Mt LO is only 7 months so it's hard tell, but ideas & our conversations about the future definitely show that I will be more free range than DH. We had a little corner store about a mile from our house & since about 12 or 13 my mom would allow my friends & I to walk down to it or roam around the neighborhood as long as we had her phone with us. I can count on one hand the amount of times she felt the need to check on us while we were gome. We also have a corner store about a mile from our home & I would totally allow LO to walk down to it with friends but DH would have a cow. He even gets upset if he finds that I went for a walk & went further than he would have liked. Hopefully we can find some kind of compromise as LO grows.

Oh man. This can be applied to so so many topics but I will just stay on the main topic. I hope to live my whole life for my children to grow up to be independent people who can take on the world. They need to learn how to figure things out on their own, stand up to people/bullies and teach the same to their own kids.

I see lots of 'helicopter' type parents at our playgroup. The parents literally follow their kids around and play with them. The kids rarely interact and if they do, the parents are right in there making sure their kid doesnt touch the other kid or steal their toy. What happened to letting kids just play together and letting them figure it out on their own?

I think the article does portray how overprotective we are becoming as a society. Kids need their parents to bail them out of every situation. So yes, I strive to be a free range parent.

I'm such a total helicopter parent and I wish to god that I could be less so. I feel like on one hand it's the media making me paranoid and on the other hand it's become so much less "know your neighbors" in our world that its hard to feel like you are enough of a community that you can trust your child to be out in the wild! I try to find a balance and my husband is very good for that.

@MrsMccarthy: I agree, the media does spread paranoia!

@Lindsay05: What is difficult for me is knowing what is okay or not by the other parent. When we're in a situation where i don't know the parents that well, I do tend to hover a bit more until I get a better sense of what they find acceptable.

This is so interesting to me, being a parent AND a teacher. I am a paranoid freak when I take kids on field trips. I am so scared of losing someone that I count them every 10 minutes. I try to put myself in the parents' shoes and I know that if my kid was lost on a field trip I would flip out. I probably wouldn't flip out on the school, but I would definitely panic a bit.

As far as free range parenting, I wouldn't say I'm quite free range, but I also don't think I'm a helicopter parent. Liam is still young, so it's different, and I only have one kid to worry about, but I do try to let him figure things out for himself to a certain extent.

@Greentea: I think that's kind of the point. Maybe not so much that Maxine is an idiot, but back when we were growing up, if that kind of thing happened, it's because we (the kids) weren't paying attention or weren't listening. There may be some questioning of the school/teacher, but for the most part it would be "Why didn't you listen to your teacher?" Nowadays, though, it's ENTIRELY the school's fault. Always. No questions asked.

Hmmm, I think my LO is too young now, but I can definitely seem DH and I being a moderate free-range parent when she's older & when we move to a smaller town. She will be in a town of 250, so as long as she knows the rules I will be okay with her having the independence my parents gave me.

@meganmp: i think the author was just pointing out the difference....that 20 years ago children had the ability to think through a problem and get themselves out of trouble, whereas in the recent situation the kids froze and didn't know how to think for themselves.

@Mrs. Lion: well, in fairness, I don't think they froze, they made a decision to stay on until the end of the line, which is better than getting off and not knowing how to navigate IMO. I think the point is more that parents now are more likely to accuse the school of wrongdoing rather than to accuse their kids.

My husband and I almost got separated in Berlin once and we have a plan in case it happens... get off at the next station and wait on the platform. We'll teach this to our son as well.

I will try to be as much of a free range parent as possible. I think the younger generations (maybe mine included) as so dependant on everyone else to make things possible for them, that they can barely think on their own.

However, there ARE so many scary things out there that I want to protect my kids from. Things that are so out of my control. I want to do anything I can to keep them safe because I don't want to end up losing my child before my time is up.

It's such a fine line.

I guess also, I do try to let kids work things out themselves, but like others have said, it's hard to read other parents and what they find appropriate. I'm REALLY relaxed about my kid bumping his head or getting hit by another kid because I know they're kids. I hope the parent will deal appropriately. But I know a lot of other parents are not as lax at me.

@looch: very good point. Sometimes stay where you are is better than make an impulsive decision and make things worse.

@locavore_mama: I'd say it's not about being a "cool parent" and it's definitely not just letting kids do "anything they want"... I think it's more about giving children appropriate freedoms and responsibilities as soon as they can handle them.

I'm new to the term "free-range parenting" though so I'm not sure completely what it implies. I'm getting my philosophies from a Montessori approach.