All of
sudden "free range children"
is a topic on the news. Free
range children refers to kids who are allowed to be off and play by themselves!
In Silver Springs, Maryland such "free range children " were picked
up by police and turned over to child protective services. Their parents were
charged with neglect. Those of us who
grew up with such "neglect" can only shake our heads! We all went out
and played out of range of the hovering protection of our parents. We learned independence,creativity, and all
kinds of survival skills. Unlike the
current generation that lives at home until they launch in their late twenties
or thirties, we left home at 18 to go to school or to work and forged a future
built on resilience and the enduring belief that we could take care of
ourselves.
It has
been apparent for a long time now that our country's children are in trouble.
They are lost! Forced to compete for overpriced college slots that lead to
disappointing jobs and massive debt,these kids do not demonstrate the ability
to land on their own two feet. We are
reaping the rewards of day care parenting and helicopter parenting. We are
seeing what happens when children are
programmed with hourly activities from an early age. I applaud those parents
who are trying to free their children from the brain deadening routines of over
programming. Yes we were
"neglected" and were "free range children" but we took our
independence and hard won creativity and built lives we could be proud of!
