You may have heard me talk (endlessly) about how much kids need some time on their own. And how parents – depending on their neighborhood, the age of their kids, yada yada yada – should try to steel themselves and let their kids walk to school, play outside, run an errand, also yada yada yada.
But it is not only anxiety that’s making this hard for parents. There are other forces working against them: The car-centric design of many modern suburbs, for one (explained well here). And now, an increasing unwillingness to tolerate unaccompanied tweens and teens in malls and other public gathering places.
Mall cops!
In this great, infuriating article, Fast Company’s Sarah Bregel reports that:
The other day, my 15-year-old daughter and her friend were smelling candles in the local grocery store just two blocks from our home. I frequently send my daughter, and my younger son, 10, to grab a few items there when I’m busy—especially in the summer when no one gripes about the walk. But on this particular day, an employee approached the girls and asked them to leave the store immediately. “Why?” they responded in unison, taken aback.
The answer: Because they didn’t have a parent or guardian with them.
Following the rules.
Turns out that that store actually did NOT have a no-unaccompanied-minors policy, as Bregel found out when she stopped by to ask them. And yet, so many other places do! In just the past year her “rules-following” daughter has been —
asked to leave a department store, our local mall, and other chains, not for loitering, being loud, or misbehaving in any way, but simply because she wasn’t with an adult.
I had no idea how common this was, so on X, I asked, “Does your local mall ban unaccompanied minors, at least some hours of the day?” Of the 110 respondents, 48% said yes, 52% said no.
The shoplifter assumption.
No doubt the malls and chains want to be able to get rid of rowdy or shoplifting kids and believe the best way is just to ban everyone of a certain age. But that’s like banning all adults because some of them will shoplift or shout.
In fact, Bregel notes, the majority of shoplifters aren’t teens: They’re parents and/or millennials. Their main motivation? Inflation.
Consider the issue from a civil rights perspective: One class of people is kept out. It’s not because of their religion, or color, or gender. But it is due to a characteristic that they can’t change. And someone in power has decided that group just doesn’t deserve the rights other people have.
Bregel quotes a Maryland mom whose teen was kicked out of a grocery after a cop asked her age, and another dad tells her his 15-year-old was kicked out of a mall.
How to fight the man…er…mall.
One way to fight back? Keep schools open for mixed-age, no-devices hang-out time, with balls, chalk, household junk (laundry baskets, old toys, tires). This works because the kids are already there, and parents trust the school, and there’s a set swath of time for the kids to have as much fun as they’d have at the mall (minus the Cinn-a-bons). Over at Let Grow (the nonprofit that grew out of Free-Range Kids) we call this, perhaps predictably, a Let Grow Play Club, and our free implementation guide for schools is here.
As the retail world becomes a place where kids aren’t welcome without a chaperone, the mall rats will swim to wherever they CAN find friends, fun, games, and gossip without adult intervention. This can be the virtual world, which is always happy to let our kids in.
Or it can be the playground (or gym, or library, or cafeteria) at the school. Parents, teachers, principals – it’s up to you where to decide where kids can still be kids.
Photo by Krisztina Papp on Unsplash
3 Comments
In the early ’60s we used to play at construction sites on weekends when no work was going on. We’d climb the framing, jump off into piles of sand, climb on the tractors, and collect discarded scraps of lumber to build stuff. Today’s construction sites are always fenced, and they lock up the tractors. No fun!
In the late ’60s we’d go to the mall, and I have to admit we made nuisances of ourselves. We deserved to get kicked out.
Cranky old dude
How do you feel about places that won’t allow adults unless accompanied by a child? Recently I attempted to check out a children’s museum, to see if it was something that my grandson would enjoy, and I was refused entry because I was alone and they don’t allow unaccompanied adults inside. I asked why, and the woman in charge told me “for safety reasons.” I politely explained that I only wanted to check the place out to see if it was something that would interest my grandson, but she looked at me as if I were some kind of miscreant and said no, it’s against the rules. I turned and left as quickly as possible, knowing that if I didn’t I would probably say something I would regret later.
While I don’t like this I can understand it. In our lawyer filled world where people sue at the drop of a hat it is a defensive reaction. If your child is bullied, injured or approached by someone who wants to do them harm, the parents first reaction,after making sure the kid is alright, is to sue so that “the store, mall,museum “ etc do something about it so it doesn’t happen again. That reaction is often to ban kids under a certain age unless a parent or guardian is with them. Also, less talked about is that not all kids are angels. When the places try to crack down on those their parent scream discrimination, so the places respond by banning all to keep out the troublemakers. If those parents would parent and take responsibility for what their own did, we would not have this problem.