What kind of a parent are you?

TEACHING INDEPENDENCE

On a glorious afternoon in May, my just-turned-11 daughter Cecily burst into the hallway, dumped her school bag and said, ‘My friends are going to the park, can I go?’ She’d never asked before, but by the front gate, a cluster of classmates awaited my decision.

I felt a sudden spark of panic. We live in a bit of London more often described as ‘up and coming’ than ‘desirable’. To get to the park, about 15 minutes’ walk away, she’d have to cross a busy main road and a couple of smaller ones. I had visions of a lorry crushing her tender limbs, flashers behind every bush, abductors beckoning from cars… I hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘Yes’.  Her eyes lit up. ‘Be back by five! Look both ways when you cross the road! Stay with your friends!’ I called after her small, retreating form.

I headed straight to Facebook to share my anxiety and ask what my friends did when facing this issue. Most admitted to feeling nervous at their child’s first independent foray into the world. “I acted cool with my 11-year-old, but felt like putting on a disguise and following her,” admitted one. However, my 20-something goddaughter reminded me that she had visited the park on her own near her suburban home aged eight. “I am quite shocked by kids’ lack of independence these days,” she wrote.

A stable shoreline

US paediatrician Dr Kenneth Ginsburg, author of Raising Kids to Thrive: Balancing Love with Expectations and Protection with Trust (American Academy of Pediatrics) has coined the term ‘lighthouse parenting’ to describe the tricky balance between protectiveness and permissiveness. He says parents should be “beacons of light on a stable shoreline from which children can safely navigate the world. We must make certain they don’t crash against the rocks, but trust they have the capacity to learn to ride the waves on their own.”

In these days of hovering Helicopter Parents, terrifying Tiger Mothers and Drone Parents, who monitor their child’s every moment on social media, CIA-style, I reckon I am a pretty relaxed mum. Since the start of Year six, last September, at her request, Cecily has gone to school independently, skateboarding the five minutes down the street and crossing two side roads. She’s also allowed to go round the block to practise her skills.

At first, this resulted in several texts from friends worried that they’d seen her ‘out alone’. Now, she is allowed to visit the corner shop to buy sweets at the weekend, and when I walk the dog, I often drop her off in the playground or the skate park. However, if she brings a friend along, I feel obliged to stay and watch them. One of those friends, Cecily told me, has once been allowed out to post a letter, “but her dad watched her the whole time.”

Some Facebook friends admitted to similar behaviour. One replied, “George is 13 and doesn’t go anywhere alone. I walk him to and from school.” Another wrote, “My boy is 15. He is currently out for the first time ever to watch his friends play cricket. I am petrified! I’ve texted him twice already.” George’s mother admitted that at her son’s age, she was “on the bus into town all the time.” I too had a free-range ‘70s childhood, walking to school with a gang of other children from the age of six and disappearing for hours on my bike by 10.

Things are very different now. A 2013 study from the University of Westminster found that only 25% of primary school pupils travel home alone as opposed to 86% in 1971. And research published earlier this year found three-quarters of UK children spend less time outside than prison inmates, while surveys by the Policy Studies Institute revealed that British children aged seven to 15 are less likely to be allowed out unsupervised than children in most other European countries. England was ranked seventh, with Finnish parents being the most liberal.

So, why are we keeping our children indoors? Fear of traffic is the main reason parents give. But some also worry about being judged as neglectful. A friend with three boys jokingly told her eldest son to switch on his mobile, saying, “If anything happened to you and I had no idea where you were, I’d look terrible.”

In 2008, American journalist Lenore Skenazy wrote an article in the New York Sun entitled Why I Let My Nine-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone. In the ensuing furore, she was dubbed ‘America’s Worst Mom’. In response she set up a website, Free-Range Kids, with the aim of “fighting the belief that our children are in constant danger.” She says, “Society hounds us to be more extravagantly protective than our own parents were. It is society’s norms we must fight, not nervous parents.”

Proof that restricting our kids doesn’t keep them safe comes from Ben Shaw, director of the Policy Studies Institute. He says freedom is, “important for their health and physical, mental and social development’. What’s more, he warns that when children start to walk to secondary school having previously never been out alone, the result is ‘a spike in road accidents’. But this doesn’t mean we should all let our nine-year-olds take the train alone.

Dr Kenneth believes lighthouse parenting is the most desirable model. He says our priority should be to teach children everyday skills such as how to cross a road, stick to a route, and how to talk to adults so they can ‘identify safe strangers and ask for help’. Nagging about stranger danger can ‘make children unsure of themselves and overly fearful of their surroundings’.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) suggests treating trips out as trial runs, where you let your child take the lead and only correct them if they do something that puts them at risk. Psychologist Pat Spungin says her own daughter first walked home from school at nine, but adds that the right age “depends on distance, traffic, the nature of the route and if they are with another child or alone.”

For longer journeys, such as into town, she suggests a minimum age of 12 for girls and 13 for later-maturing boys, saying, “Parents need to know their children. A shy child may not ask for help if something goes wrong, whereas a younger, yet more confident child will.”

Kristen Harding, child development expert at Tinies childcare agency, agrees. “Being independent is something a child builds up, starting with small things such as posting a letter, and gradually allowing them to go further afield. Don’t push children into being independent, but provide them with the skills and opportunities, and be guided by what they want to do.”

My fears were, of course, unfounded, Cecily arrived home exactly when told to, cheerful and grubby. I asked her what she thought about the subject. “I think most children my age could go to the park without their parents sometimes,” she said. But did she want more freedom, I wondered. Did she want to go on the bus to town? Cecily looked horrified. “No! I’ll tell you when I want that.” Which is, I think, fair enough.