How much freedom do you give your kids?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My wife and I are separated with two girls, 4.5 ‘S’ and 2 ‘C’. The oldest has started acting out so we’ve decided to have her do some counseling just to make sure things are ok. We had a meeting last night with the counselor to talk about what the oldest has been doing and saying. Then we got to talking about how we each deal with the kids.

The youngest is a bit more afraid, but that’s because she’s 2. The oldest has started to want more independence, so I have begun to give her some. Sometimes ‘S’ will ask to go to the bathroom by herself at a store or a restaurant. I’ll let her, sometimes I don’t even leave my seat. At the playground she now runs off and I don’t always stay right with her, especially since she can do more I need to stay with ‘C’. There are times when ‘S’ is out of my sight for a couple of minutes, but there’s only one way in and out of the playground and she go that way without me seeing her.

I think my wife just about died when she heard this. The counselor kind of went :dubious: too. They said, but there are bad people and something could happen in the bathroom. Or if she’s away from you on the playground she could get hurt.

I of course said that the ‘bad man’ isn’t going to be hiding out in the bathroom, and no one is going to take her, and they couldn’t get out of the restaurant since I’m near the door. I also said that at the playground even if she were to fall it wouldn’t matter how close I was to her, she’d still get hurt.

I also learned last night that kids are starting to have problems learning some things because they used to learn them from interacting with the older kids, but guess what, they don’t play with older kids now, because it’s dangerous. I really wish I could remember how the counselor said it, but I thought, well maybe kids should be allowed to you know, play.

I don’t think I’m being all that unreasonable. I don’t allow my kids to just run down the street, at least not at this age. I know they’re not going to be abducted, and the odds of them stumbling upon ‘Chester the Molester’ are small. Yet it seemed they wanted me to feel bad for putting my kids in danger.

So how much freedom do you allow your kids and at what age?

I’m also aware of free range kids.

2

As a parent, with two kids who are also close in age, I think you’re being completely reasonable. My kids are older now, approaching teen years, but we’ve gradually increased their independence since they were born: that’s what parents do, right?

My 12 year old goes to the mall with friends. She has a cell phone. God, at 8 I was gone on my bike all day!

3

I think you sound pretty reasonable except for one thing: letting your 4 year old go to the bathroom by herself in a restaurant. Not because Herbert the Pervert might be in there, but because 4 year olds are tiny. If your kid is running around unsupervised, there’s a very good chance she’ll get trampled by own of the servers or another customer.

This drives me nuts when it happens in the library. A restaurant is much less wide open and more prone to tramplin’.

4

Yeah, Justin is right - little kids by themselves in a restaurant is a bad idea. You ever seen waitresses carrying trays of food? Having been there, done that, I can tell you - no peripheral vision under the tray. A little kid can be easily overlooked. Otherwise, I don’t see any problems with the OP. Especially the playground stuff - sweet Jeebus, it’s a playground, so it’s for, y’know, playing. You don’t have to be right at her side for that!

(Did you include all that stuff in the initial paragraph because you think this is somehow connected to her acting out?)

5

I agree with the bathroom thing- you should be taking her. It’s not because she might be abducted or even because she might get hurt. It’s because kids misbehave in bathrooms. They don’t like to wash their hands properly any more than they like to brush their teeth and take baths. They like to use too many paper towels and leave the water running. They don’t flush the toilets and they get dispenser soap everywhere. Please, take your kids to the bathroom not for their sake, but for the sake of follow-on adults!

But the playground thing? Visual contact every, say, minute is a good rule.
As for the title topic, I only have hypothetical kids. My parents gave me a lot of freedom as a kid, and I was pretty independent of them by the time I was 15. My fiancee was kept under close supervision and now she’s still quite tethered to her parents, financially and emotionally. Her brother, who’s approaching 30, still lives in their basement.

It will be quite interesting fighting about how to raise our kids.

6

Ditto on bathrooms- kids sometimes need help too- mine had an accident because she couldn’t get her pants unbuttoned on her own. Kids generally don’t handle “crisis” well when they have to go potty. I agree on not tripping up the waiters either.

Playground, though? Let her have at it and have fun.

7

I try to give my son some freedom like I had. I let him play in the yard alone (back yard, quiet neighbourhood) go to the neighbours house (two doors down) to play with the kids which is about what I remember doing at that age. He has rules about telling us where he’s going, if he’s going from the yard to the neighbour he has to stick his head in and tell us so if i look out the window and don’t see him I don’t panic (and yes it’s happened a time or two) and if I yell his name he better damn well be in earshot and answer me back.

He’s almost 7 btw.

I only recently (the last year I guess) started letting him go to the bathroom on his own, pretty much for the reasons stated. That and he had a tendency to get really distracted easily so might have wandered into the kitchen because he spotted something cool (happened when I waitressed and man that was annoying not to mention dangerous for the child or anyone moving fast in the kitchen with hot food).

8

Yeah, there are all kinds of reasons to take your kid to the bathroom in a public place.

It’s nice, now that my kids are a little older–I can pretty much just hang out at the park and make sure I can see them every once in a while. When they were small, I would mostly let them run around, but would follow at a distance to make sure I could keep an eye on them. It’s easy enough to mosey over and stand near where they’re playing.

Over the summer, I realized that my new 10yo had no sense of direction. If we walked somewhere in the neighborhood, she was quite likely to go zooming off in a random direction even though she’d walked that way many times before. So I stuck her on her bike and told her to go explore–as long as she doesn’t go out to one of the major busy streets, she can’t really get lost. I let her take my cell phone in case she couldn’t find her way back, but she never used it and had a great time. She’s done it a bunch of times now. (She gets that great sense of direction from me. When I started driving, I nearly drove my mom crazy with my utter cluelessness about direction.)

9

Mine are pretty free range and always have been.

And it was about 4.5 that my kids started going to bathrooms by themselves in restaurants. Obviously, if the establishment was sketchy - well, we didn’t often stop to go potty at “Al’s Truck Stop…”

They are eleven and twelve now - so really pretty independent. And they survived this long without getting abducted.

10

It is one thing to take your kids to a bathroom in a public place because of accidents, or whatever. But please don’t do what my friend did with her 6 YO - the kid went to the bathroom in our office (down the hall) by herself, and the mom said, “You know not to go to the bathroom by yourself! There are BAD MEN in there, waiting to take you away from me!” :eek:

So either the kid will grow up terrified, or, more likely, she’ll grow up thinking mom is a huge exaggerator and won’t ever believe her.

11

I agree with the bathroom comments above. 4 is too young to go to the bathroom in a public place by themselves.

Side question: Are you looking for points to support you in defense of your parenting to your wife? If you believe there’s a high chance of reconciling with her then including your wife in your parenting discussions is appropriate. If this separation is just a step towards a divorce, then, unless you are potentially an unfit parent, your soon to be ex-wife really has no bearing on how you parent your own children. People parent differently, and divorced parents have no obilgation to try and find common ground in their parenting styles. Kids will adjust to the different rules at the different houses. This tend to be most difficult for the more controlling parent.

Best of luck.

12

I started sending my son to the bathroom by himself when he was 4.5. I would wait by the door or from somewhere I could see the door. In a small restaurant, I probably would have waited at the table.

13

I’ll have to rethink my position on letting her go to the bathroom, at least in the restaurant. At least having her get hit by the staff is a much more real problem then a stranger.

I doubt it, but that’s on her not me. Though she could use it against me possibly, ‘He allows them to play at the playground unsupervised.’ or 'He allows them to go to the bathroom alone. ’ Though I don’t think that would happen.

14

Mine are 9 and 11 (both boys) and it largely depends on where we are. We live out in the foothills and back up to a large cattle ranch. I let them roam around at home pretty much for as long and as far as they want to go. They’ll take their pellet guns and the dog out and be gone for several hours and I don’t have any problems with that. Worst case scenario is that they could run into a mountain lion but planning for that is impossible. Plus, our big cat population isn’t so stressed that two boys with guns and a dog looks like an attractive meal. There have been times when they kind of circle around and end up back on the road and one of the locals will stop and let them jump in the back and get a ride back home and that doesn’t faze them or me.

Unfortunately, when it comes to cities they are incredibly unsophisticated. They are the proverbial country bumpkins “gone to town.” I tend to keep them on a pretty short leash when we’re out.

15

I started letting Fang go to the bathroom in restaurants by himself at six. My wife was taken aback, when he asked if he could go, and I pointed out where it was to him. I told her he knew what to do if someone tries to give him trouble. When he got back (his hands were a little wet, because they only had air dryers) I asked him what he’s supposed to do if some one tries to grab him, or touch his privates.

He looked at me as if I had grown a second, evil head, and said, “Kick him in the wiener, and run away.” Mrs. Magill has no problem going to the restroom by himself anymore.

16

This whole sentence made me giggle. So cute!

17

I think four is a little young for unsupervised public bathroom visits. Not because I’m afraid of Chester the Molester, but rather they may be a little too small to reach the sink and the soap. Also, little boys seem fascinated by the piss biscuit in the urinal, and I’d rather they not want to play with anything in the urinal. I’m weird like that.

18

Just thought I’d throw my vote in that you’re being reasonable, but might want to continue to accompany your child to the bathroom. My son is your daughter’s age and he still occasionally stuffs the toilet full of too much TP so it overflows when flushed.