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Well, I am bringing this thread back as a result ofthe terrible tragedy involving the 12 yr old in New Jersey....
She was riding her bike to a friends' house, perfectly safe, right?
Apparently not, she was found 5 blocks from her home in a recycling bin....
What about the little girl in CO who was going to meet her friends and never made it?
Call me a helicopter parent, say I am sheltering my kids too much, say whatever you want..
My children are 10 & 6 and they will not be allowed to walk to a friends home that I cannot see from my house, they will not be allowed to walk to school on their own ( we are walkers...) or ride their bikes out of my site....
The reality is that crimes against children committed by strangers grab the headlines around the country, and yet pick any major newspaper and somewhere you are bound to find stories of crimes against children committed by their close family, usually their parents or step-parents, and those stories do not make it onto the national news.
Statistics don't lie. The incidence of crimes, such as what happened to these poor girls, is very infrequent. The chance of a crime being committed against children by someone they know, love, and trust is .......tragically much, much higher.
The sickening stories of Autumn Pasquale, found in a dumpster, and Jessica Ridgeway, abducted while walking to school, are enough to drive any parent crazy with sadness. Those poor girls! Those hideous monsters! How can we keep our children safe? The answer, I’m afraid, is: we can’t. Not totally. Not ever. Not even if we drove them to school every morning. What we can do is teach our kids some basic safety rules. And then we can try to teach ourselves how to gain some perspective on these crimes—perspective that will keep us from desperately locking up our children inside.
All the fear in the world doesn’t prevent death.
It prevents life.
NYMD, I have been following the same two cases you mention, and I agree that you cannot be too involved and protective these days. I would rather be a helicopter parent than a grieving one. I give my child a lot of freedom, but also keep her on a short leash, so to speak. She can walk with friends, but I have to know exactly where she walks, what streets she will take and she has to call me at certain points. I will ease up when she's older, but as a sixth grader I feel she is lucky to have the freedom she has.
Well, I am bringing this thread back as a result ofthe terrible tragedy involving the 12 yr old in New Jersey....
She was riding her bike to a friends' house, perfectly safe, right?
Apparently not, she was found 5 blocks from her home in a recycling bin....
What about the little girl in CO who was going to meet her friends and never made it?
Call me a helicopter parent, say I am sheltering my kids too much, say whatever you want..
My children are 10 & 6 and they will not be allowed to walk to a friends home that I cannot see from my house, they will not be allowed to walk to school on their own ( we are walkers...) or ride their bikes out of my site....
I truly believe both these girl's lives could have been spared. In the case of Jessica Ridgeway in CO, her mom said goodbye that morning and went to sleep, shutting off her phone. She worked nights. Her daughter was supposed to walk to the park where she would meet up with friends and then they would all walk together. The mom should have walked her to the park, which was only a couple of blocks away. I believe the school called to tell the mom that the daughter wasn't in school, but the mom didn't get the call into after 4pm when she woke up and checked messages. That gave the abducter a huge head start. As for the girl in NJ, Autumn, she took off on her bike without saying where she was going at 1230pm. She had an 8pm curfew. Her dad called the police at around 9:30 pm. Both cases are beyond heartbreaking.
Thanks for posting this, Zim. To my mind, one of the peculiar things about parenting is that I can logically know the statistical likelihood of various risks and concurrently emotionally experience fear of low incidence risks completely disproportionate to the facts. I think it is an uncomfortable thing to sit with, desperately wanting to keep our kids safe and knowing that the best we can do is prepare them in pragmatic ways and then exercise the best judgment we can with respect to how much independence to encourage at any given developmental stage.
Intense hovering may or may not prevent something that in all likelihood will never happen to your child. But what it will do 100% of the time is teach fear and promote a lack of confidence.
Seems people are most interested in protecting their own feelings from an incredibly unlikely event at the very likely expense of the their own child's psychological well being.
When our three children would encounter problems at school or with friends etc. we would usually just ask do you need help solving this problem? It was very rare for them to say yes usually they just wanted to vent and then work on it theirselves. We would ask how's it going, is it better type questions but never intervened unless they ask us to.
I think just knowing that we thought they could handle it gave them the confidence to do it. Two are in their 20's now and very self sufficient.
This is slightly off topic, and sort of a vent, but here goes.
The elementary school where I teach has had many problems with parents walking their children to the classroom and helping them off with their coats, unpacking their school bags, going into the classroom & straightening their child's desk, etc long after the child should be able to do it by themselves (first or second grade).* In addition to the children not being independent there would be groups of five or six (or more) parents inside and outside of each classroom chatting while the teacher was trying to get the students starting on their school day.
It was also a security problem because it was difficult to monitor all of those parents. It would have been easy for a "stranger" to just walk in with the parents and children.
* Heck, most of my three and four year old early childhood special education students are independent and skilled enough to take off their own coats and unpack their own school bags.
This year the new principal changed the entrance procedures and all of the students enter by the front door (instead of waiting on the playground with their parents and then walking in multiple entrances when the bell rang). There are teachers and aides supervising both inside and outside the building and parents aren't supposed to walk their children inside.
It is amazing how many parents feel that "the rules don't apply to me". Almost one quarter of the school year is almost over and still there are about 15 or 20 parents walking their 4K, 5K and first graders to their classroom "to make sure that they don't get lost". How can they get lost walking down one hallway? I see the parents taking off their children's coats and hanging them up, emptying their school bags, putting their lunch bag in the box, etc. The staff also worries about security. We have occasionally stopped someone who didn't look familiar and were told "I'm Billy's uncle" or "I'm Jenny's grandpa".
It is frustrating for the teachers who are trying keep all of the children safe and secure as well as build age appropriate self help skills and independence.
The principal has tried to get some of these parents to stop coming inside but it has been difficult.
Sorry for the long vent. But sometimes these "helicopter parents" can be a problem in ways that you don't automatically imagine.
I am far from being a helicopter parent. My 7 year old goes out playing in the neighborhood and knows what time to be home. She has been doing this for a couple of years.
The only time I walk her to class is the first day of school. That is for a couple of reasons. 1. On the first day, she has so much stuff that it is hard to carry it all. 2. It is for me. I like walking her to class on her first day and snapping a picture of her at her new desk. I do make sure that we are early and I am gone long before class starts. I also let her unpack her own bag (even on the first day with all of the new supplies). Every other day I just drop her off at day care and they driver her to school in a can with other kids.
I have always treated her like she is a bit older than her real age. That may be why last week she figured out how to get a large pumpkin to school without breaking it. She solves most of her problems without any intervention from me (not that I am not watching to give advice if it is needed). In Kindergarten, she was responsible for the drinks for a class party. She also figured out then how she was going to get all of those heavy drinks from Day care on to the bus, off of the bus and all of the way to the back of the school to her classroom. I honestly believe that kids are very capable of figuring out how to handle their own lives. We just have to stand back and let them figure it out for themselves. Sometimes this takes a bit of guidance, but you would be amazed at what they can figure out if you just give them a chance.
I am also comfortable with her riding her bike around the neighborhood because I have taught her what to do in an emergency and because I have taken the time to get to know most of my neighbors.
I am not saying that I don't worry. Of course I do, but I have also learned my child's limitations and have confidence in her abilities. I take such pride when I watch her handle things in her life and take control of a situation. I am not worried about her being a strong adult who can take charge of her own life. That is something I could never say with conviction if I was a helicopter parent.
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