I voted “free range,” but I hope there’s a certain understanding that this means different things for different ages. You don’t let your 5-year-old leave the house at dawn and tell him to be back by suppertime if he can’t tell time yet. “Free range” doesn’t mean abandoning all parental responsibilities, nor expecting your kids to earn privileges. In fact, in my time (I was born in January of 1967), kids still go shoved out and told to “go play,” and basically stay out of their parent’s hair, but how far they could roam was often defined by what barriers they’d broken through showing responsibility, mainly by obeying previous standards, and following house rules, including doing chores.
Of course, one thing about free-range parenting, is that when everyone was doing it, the kids traveled in packs. When I was six, and wandering around Manhattan, I was with kids as old as 13, one of whom was often my 12-year-old cousin. I wasn’t free-ranging all by myself.
Right now, we live in an apartment building where everyone is either free-range, or just laissez-faire, and so my son hangs out with a group of kids I know, and whose parents I know. If he is playing basketball in the parking lot, in the designated no-car hoop area, at 7pm, I know who he’s with, and that a couple of the kids are 14 or 15. I’m not expecting that the older kids are actually babysitting him, just that their presence discourages someone who might approach an 8-year-old alone.
My son is going to camp this summer, we are considering getting my son his first phone. It won’t be a Smartphone, just something he can use mainly to call us, 911, and whatever his destination is, if he is lost and needs directions-- you know, if he finds the right building, but not the right room. He will be nine in October, and he can ride a city but that will be a straight shot, from right in front of our building, to right in front of the camp location, and we are thinking of letting him do it.
When I was ten, I used to take a bus home alone from school in Moscow, when I still spoke Russian poorly, and I had a five-block walk to the bus stop, and a three-block walk home, including crossing a busy street. We’ll ride the bus with our son a few times, and then let him make up his own mind about whether or not his is comfortable taking it alone. But if he does, he will have a phone, because there just are not pay phones every block anymore.
A bigger debate is whether to get him a prepaid debit card. My husband is in favor of it, because if he loses it, or it is stolen, he can get the money back by cancelling it. I think it’s too much like a credit card, and won’t teach him the value of money. DH thinks letting him carry cash makes him a target, but I can’t imagine he’ll ever have more than $5 at once. Frankly, I can’t even believe we’re having this discussion.
But at any rate, we wouldn’t be considering letting him ride the bus alone if he hadn’t done a lot of little things that demonstrated he was ready, like going down to the school bus on his own (including watching the clock, and knowing when to go), and always calling for permission to be out later than the agreed-upon time, even if he just wants to be a half-hour late (sometimes he might be playing a game at a friends’ house, and he wants to finish it, for example), and never going farther than the agreed-upon boundaries, as defined by the busy streets without safe crossing (ie, no stop sign or light).
I guess that sounds more like “free range,” with limits, but I think free range has always had limits, especially for children in cities. Compared to some of the parents at our son’s school, we have practically relinquished him to the wolves. But old-fashioned parenting has always included things like music lessons, dance lessons, and chores, so it was never just turning the kid loose from the time school got out until dusk.
My point is that “free range” isn’t mindless. It’s a series of decisions guided by the over-riding philosophy that less is more when it comes to direct supervision, and that teaching the kid to make his own good decisions, through example and experience, is better than being there every minute to make then all for him.
Actually, “Old school” might be a better term for what we do, than “free range.” Our kid has lessons, and chores, and is expected to behave nicely a the table, participating in family dinners. He’s expected to get his homework done before computer or TV time, and to play outside. He gets an allowance so he has autonomy, but also so we can dock it as punishment (which at eight is more effective than grounding, or anything else, probably more effective than a spanking). He gets a generous allowance, and has to decide whether he wants to put some of it in his school lunch account, or make a lunch for himself every night before school (help if requested, but only if requested). He has to lay out his clothes the night before, and we help him check the weather on the computer so he can decide what he needs to wear the next day. He’s allowed to watch only one hour of TV a day on school days, but he is free to DVR things, so on the exceptions, sick days, rainy days, and school vacation days when it’s cold out, and Sundays, he can watch a lot more. I remember once he had strep, and all he could do was lie on the couch-- he probably watched 20 hours of TV over three days. We do go to Sunday afternoon movies, and spoil him with popcorn and soda.
He’s a happy little boy who does well in school, and he’s not a natural student, but he’s a hard worker, so I don’t think we’re doing too badly.