Comments on: The Bus Stop Conundrum: To free-range or not to free range

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:00:05 +0000

Glad to see you echoing Lenore’s Free Range Sanity. Hopefully our culture will catch on to how irrational many fears are that most people harbor.

If you visited our city and tried to judge how many children lived here by the number you saw riding bikes on our 20+ miles of paved bike paths, you’d decide this was a retirement community – and most of the residents were probably too disabled to walk or bike. And I’m talking about a bike path totally set apart from auto traffic dangers.

By: Denise

Denise — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:39:39 +0000

Esther,

Thank you so much for your comment! And getting names right is not a minor quibble — I appreciate you pointing out the error. I actually did think it was Albel based on how his family pronounces it, but when I asked his mom last year the meanings of her children’s names (I love that stuff) I do recall she said it was the name of a mountain. So I suppose I mis-hears.

Happy New Year! And I hope you keep reading.

Denise

By: Estherar

Estherar — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:33:03 +0000

Yes, we Israelis tend to be more ‘free-range’ than Americans. Also, the fear of a child being kidnapped isn’t really uppermost in most parents’ minds.

My kids live close enough to the school and are old enough to walk there themselves when the weather permits, but I wouldn’t be waiting outside for the school bus with my 6-year-old much beyond the first few days of school if she were to ride there.

I really like your blog and am looking forward to reading more!

(By the way, a minor quibble: Is it possible the baby’s name is aRbel and not aLbel? Hebrew names, especially modern ones, usually have meanings. The former is the name of a mountain north of Tiberias; the latter is gibberish.)

Esther @ Mainstream Parenting Resources (and a fellow mean mommy. Just ask my kids!)

By: Amber

Amber — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:36:16 +0000

My son just started kindergarten in the same school both my husband and I went to school in – a small town in rural Iowa. This year, a note went home that K-1-2 kids that ride the bus will not be left at their homes unless an adult is present when they are dropped off. The bus will take them back to school. I can remember very well getting dropped off by the bus at home and waiting the 30-60 minutes until my mom came home in the afternoons. Each parent and each child need to determine their comfort level and each parent should try to encourage independence in their child.

By: Fighting for the Right to Bike to School «

Fighting for the Right to Bike to School « — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:48:47 +0000

[...] about 115 children are abducted by strangers each year, some 250,000 are injured in car crashes. Many parents get this, and some are wondering: If schools and districts are so obsessed with the [...]

By: Denise

Denise — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:16:20 +0000

Thanks for your thoughts, Stefanie — and good for your for letting your 9-year-old play with the big boys! Living in a similar area to you, I hear you on the car thing. No one drives slowly on residential streets anymore — and EVERYONE seems to be on the phone! It’s like we have to train our kids to be alert to new and different dangers then we had when we were kids!

keep reading,
Denise

By: Stefanie

Stefanie — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:14:22 +0000

I’m enjoying this discussion. I live in Plainview and my son is 9 years old. I’ve read about Free Range kids and for the past year have been gradually giving my son more freedom. He plays ball with neighbors outside on the lawn without me spectating and refereeing from a nearby lawn chair. I used to monitor all street traffic with a verbal alert system and retrieve all items that went in the gutter. I have gotten myself to where I can stay in the house and only glance out the window from time to time. It probably helps that the other kids are a little older and very respsonsible but after a while you get to trust that your kid is not going to run into the street after a ball without checking for cars. I just wish he’d remember to bring home his baseball glove.

We’ve been bicycling together – in the street! I definitely got looks last year when I chose the street rather than the rare sidewalks in our neighborhood but what little drivers see is in the street not on the sidewalk. I’m not quite ready to let him do this on his own since we’re around the corner from a road where drivers believe the 40 mph limit is a low-end suggestion and in the other direction there are unprotected corners where the nicer car gets the right of way. Eventually my son will get a better feel for this on his own but but for now at least he is learning safety habits from practice. Maybe next year.

By: Streetsblog New York City » Fighting for the Right to Bike to School

Streetsblog New York City » Fighting for the Right to Bike to School — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:37:43 +0000

By: Denise

Denise — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:16:48 +0000

Thanks for your comment, Kari! And good for you for letting your son bike to school. Aren’t people’s comments funny? Walking, in general, is so out of the ordinary in some places that people automatically think, “surely you’d want to drive if you could, right?” My mom walks as much as she can, to run errands or whatever, and neighbors are always slowing down in their cars and offering a ride, thinking maybe her car broke down. If more moms in your area allowed their old-enough kids to walk or bike, everyone would look less “odd.” Meanwhile, I’m a little jealous because here in the S. Huntington district, no schools are accessible by bike; the districting is odd, so many of us live a couple miles from schools, and they’re mostly on busy roads with no sidewalks.

I hope you keep reading, and good luck with kindergarten for your daughter! My little guy just started, but we have full-day (yay!).

Denise

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:12:42 +0000

Congratulations on being mentioned in the NYT article. Great to be noticed.

I grew up in River Edge, NJ in the 50s. Quiet suburb of NYC. We walked and rode our bikes everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. We were gone from home hours at a time, without cell phones, and without checking in. Mom trusted me (mostly because she knew someone would call her if I was out of line anywhere in town). But I truly was free range.

Fast forward to my parenthood….I was in the Army, and my kids learned responsibility quickly. But we always moved. So the only way they learned to fit in was to get out and into the neighborhood. Yet, they had a little less freedom than I did. Our house became the neighborhood safe place. That was comforting.

Now, I work in a school district, and the number one complaint parents have is that they cannot see the bus stop from their house. They call to complain that they want it moved to their driveway. If we did that, the children would never get to school! Still, we have the helicopter parents who barely let go.

Something is lost….a sense of responsibility….a sense of trust….a sense of freedom. My grand children never leave their driveway and have a fenced back yard in one of the safest towns I can imagine. Still, we worry about the unthinkable. Though the “good old days” had a lot of not so good things, we had some freedoms that would be refreshing to enjoy today.

Thanks for the post.