More than half of all 14-year-olds are NOT ALLOWED OFF THEIR BLOCK (finds an Institute for Family Studies survey of 25,000 Americans)?
That is LITERALLY, not figuratively, WACKY!
It’s like believing that if you eat a KitKat your ears will SPURT BLOOD!
A friend just wrote to say that my job is hard because not only do people not realize there’s anything OFF about this constant terror for our kids, it has become completely normal and even valorized.
BUT! The fact that there’s now a bill in CONGRESS saying that America has gone overboard on safety and this is ruining kids and we need to not only DECRIMINALIZE childhood independence but ENCOURAGE IT — that gives me hope.
As does the work of the psychologist Dr. Camilo Ortiz. He’s studying independence as THERAPY for clinically anxious kids and it is going so well that even HE is in shock. (He keeps sharing stories of kids changed after just a COUPLE WEEKS of things like walking to the store or a friend’s house. Let’s goooo! Just loosening the reins a little is so simple and EFFECTIVE!)
AND I get hope from all the parents and teachers writing to me — to Let Grow, actually — to say that once they step back and let kids do new things on their own, a LIGHT BULB goes on. “Oh! They were ready to do this ALL ALONG! And now they feel so much better because they are not in pause-mode anymore! They are activated! Alive!”
So even though that 25,000-parent study ALSO found that “62% said that 8 to 12-year-old children should receive more supervision than they currently do” — MORE! — I continue to believe that CHILDHOOD INDEPENDENCE will win out, because it makes everyone happier and NOT LESS SAFE! Actually MORE safe when it comes to childhood anxiety, which is INFINITELY more common than stranger danger!
So here I am — ranting, worried, hopeful as heck.
The human condition.