Supervision of your children while they play.

Great Debates
1

In this thread, the subject of whether and when children should be under adult supervision while playing, as is usual for a GD topic started by me, I have mixed views on the subject:

If a young child is allowed to play unsupervised:
[ul][li]They may sustain injury resulting from an action that they either wouldn’t have attempted with adults present, or could have been rescued before they came to harm.[/li][li]They may be abducted.[/li][li]They may be exposed to influences that the parent finds unacceptable.[/ul][/li]
However, supervising them constantly may:
[ul][li]Simply not be practical for the parent, considering the other tasks to be done in running a household.[/li][li]Stifle their independence.[/ul][/li]
Objectively, the chance of a child being abducted is very small and yet one instinctively feels that if such a terrible thing should happen, the finger will point to the parents for not taking more care - and yet to think this way seems wrong too (almost “I’m not worried about you, dear child, only what the newspapers might say”).

And of course age must play a part too; even if we agree that they must be supervised at all times, there comes a point at which we must cut the cord.

So.

That’t the debate; is it a good idea to allow your children to play in a public place unsupervised and from what age?

2

I am not a parent. I think the setting plays a big part of the decision. In your back yard or inside the house would require a parent to be “around”, but not watching the every move. I think in addition to chronological age, the maturity has to be taken into account. Some 12 year olds may be capable of stating home alone for a few hours. Others may not be. I am unsure of what exactly what signs a parent should look for when making this decision.

I see elementary age kids riding their bikes to neighborhood schools. I do not think this is negligent parenting. However, I am not sure I would be willing to allow my own child to do this.

3

For the record I was allowed to roam completely unsupervised from the age of 3; we lived in Cyprus at the time, I’m not sure if that makes a difference either way; I would often hurt myself, not usually very seriously, but one time (probably age 4) I stepped on a plank with a nail in it and it pierced my foot right through, another time I returned home with my hand impaled on the spines of a huge chunk of cactus; I was left to wander off and do whatever I wanted (I spent most of the time catching lizards or poking dead cats with sticks) and at times I would walk up to a mile or so from home. My parents did keep me under close supervision when the war broke out (we were evacuated shortly afterwards).

When I think back, it doesn’t seem like bad parenting to me in the slightest but I sure as hell wouldn’t let my kids wander off like that, strange isn’t it?

4

I hasten to add that this is the war connected with the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, not WW2 (so we’re not necessarily talking about a ‘golden age of innocence’ or anything)

5

I have similar memories, great memories, of being allowed to explore unsupervised in the deep woods. I don’t consider my parents to be negligent but maybe they were. We roamed all over the place, got lost on purpose, and exposed ourselves to many dangers. Specifically, I remember going to the creek after a very heavy rain. The water would be very high and rushing. Hell, we thought this was the very best fun… kind of like a prehistoric water park. I think parents were in some ways more permissive and in some ways, less permissive. In some ways, my parents were beyond reason, lax. In other ways diligent. As for supervision…we were romping around in the woods without adults at around 8 or 9.

6

When I was a kid I went out unsupervised from the age of about five. This is to local parks and woods less than half a mile from my house. However, I know that many of my friends parents were more protective and only let their kids out on their own at nine or ten. Did we ever get into danger? Yes, to an extent, but it has taught us to look after ourselves in the big bad world.

Now I have a child of my own. She’ll be four next week and has just started wanting to ‘play out with friends.’ I prop my doors open so that I can hear if she cries (or goes suspiciously quiet), but I don’t go out there myself because kids do need to learn to play without adults around - I’d just be in the way. This last Spring and Summer has also seen me give her more freedom in the local (large) park: she can go off on her own, as long as I can keep her in sight. Often she goes out of my sight and then I have to hunt for her all over. I do worry about abductions and accidents, but I think by allowing her some freedom I’m equipping her with the skills and confidence to avoid such abductions and accidents when she’s older. After all, I can’t keep her under my wing forever.

7

[tongue in cheak]
I think kids should be able to roam free, unless something bad happens, then I think we need to incarcerate their heartless, ignorant parents.
[/tongue in cheak]

I think that if we’re talking about 4-8 year olds, depending on the child and the environment I’d let my kid play unsupervised (myself or someone else would need to be “around” though). I’m much more likely to let a kid play unsupervised in a rural or semi-rural environment than an urban one. Oh, and I don’t have kids of my own, btw.

8

The decision of how independent a child is obviously depends on the parent and the child.
My son is impulsive and therefore I must limit some of his freedoms accordingly.
Currently my biggest concern of children playing (I am dealing more with kids 8-10 when I say children) is the whole sex exploration. The girls talk to me about french kissing and such and there is already a lot of pressure to ‘like’ someone.
I like to make sure there is an adult around so that the children actually play instead of trying to one up each other being cool.
Don’t get me wrong, they still brag and such all the time, I just try to keep the conversations g rated.
Last saturday I took three kids (one is mine) out to eat. One of the kids insisted they needed beer to drink.
That is stupid and I refuse to listen to 8 year olds talk about one of them liking beer, so I give my quick opinion and change the subject.
This is why I like to supervise at my childs age.
Plus I know I can only get away with this type of interference for so long and I sure do want to take advantage of that so I may interject some truth and then my opinion so my child knows where I stand on a variety of issues.
Not that we don’t talk otherwise, I just can’t forsee all of the conversations he will have.

9

I don’t think that there really is a magical age in which we can say, “Ok, you’re such and such now, so you can go play outside unsupervised”, as much as determining, yourself, as a parent whether or not you feel that your child is mature enough to handle the situation. I do think that there is too young, and would say that the article that I cited in the other thread gives a fairly good “average age”, when it says that the experts say 6 years of age. I am guessing that 6 seems to be the average age at which kids are able to make appropriate decisions. In my case, although my son is 7, I would not let him play out front unsupervised, because we have had some problems at school, and the likes, which goes towards showing me that he is not mature enough to handle it. He has ADHD, which may very well play into it, he’s a bit socially behind other kids his age.

His sister is 5, and I do not feel that she is mature enough to handle it, although, given her maturity level, versus her brother’s, I’d say she’s probably more likely to be allowed out, somewhere around the age of 8 (this is a complete guess). That said, given that I would have a major fight on my hands if I let my son out to play, and not my daughter, and given my son’s slowness, with maturity, it will probably work out to where he’ll be ready around the same time she is, or, at least, I am hoping that it does.

~V

10

ahh, my son has been diagnosed the same - ADHD. He went through seven months (he was on the mild side) of nuerofeedback treatments and now things have gotten much easier.
Not quite the improvement seen with meds but he is much more social now (and many other improvements but enough off subject).

11

I just wanted to specify that when my daughter ‘plays out’ with her friends, they are actually in the hallway and lobby of our flats. At her age I wouldn’t let her play out on even a quiet street with her friends, because she simply isn’t safe on the roads yet. She always stops at the kerb, knows ‘look left, look right,’ and so on, but she would also run out after a bigger friend who’s going faster than her and easily get run over. IMHO, the increased numbers of cars in all areas are one of the major reasons parents have got into the habit of not letting their kids play out.

12

I have always been reluctant to let my daughter, who’s 7, play at the front of our house unsupervised. Then school broke up for the summer holidays. She’s now allowed to play out with her friends as long as she keeps within sight of the house and goes no further, which so far she has. I think she’s mature enough now to be allowed this little bit of freedom and it would have been unfair of me to keep her from her friends.

We recently moved from a quiet village where she was allowed to play in the back alley with her friends from around age 5 but there there was always an adult I knew (or myself) around to keep an eye on them. Now we’re in a busier town I see children I would guess to be around 3 or 4 playing out, quite often in the road, with no adults in sight at all. They’re ‘supervised’ by their slightly older brothers or sisters and I’m terrified one of them will get knocked down by a car.

13

Fears of having my child abducted have never really played a big part in how much freedom I allow my children. In fact, I don’t think they played any part.There were so many other far more likely bad outcomes that were my real worry depending on their ages and level of freedom, starting from falling down the stairs and turning on the hot water and getting burned when they were very young (restricted to two rooms on the lower floor of the house if I wasn’t right there) , on to running into the street and being hit by a car when they were a little older ( fenced back yard) all the way to getting lost ( allowed to play in specified places- friend on the next block, park but must tell me before going anywhere else)

As I said in the other thread, I think adult presence matters too. I’m sure I allowed my children to play in front of the house alone much younger on my street, where there still were adults stoop-sitting, then I would have on my brothers street, which looks like a ghost town (people walk between house and car, and spend no other time on sidewalks or stoops)

14

Jeesh, these days, kids are getting abducted out of their homes while their parents sleep.

:frowning:

My wife and I are going to have a baby soon, we’ve been discussing the OP lately and wondering how we will act. I often rode my bike up to a mile a way by the time I was 8 or 9, played army in the woods, went exploring, etc… she did much of the same but had her brother with her. I climbed trees fifty feet high, shot off fireworks on my own, owned a knife or two, had a slingshot, an archery set and a pellet gun. By the time I was thirteen or fourteen I was camping in the woods by myself (well, I had my dog for protection, as well as the aforementioned weapons/toys ) I’d also earned four or five different sets of stitches and coulntless cuts and bruises. And then there are the things I did that my parents never knew about. I was nearly killed at age six when I did a 180 on a go-cart right in front of an unseen oncoming car. Some of those firecrackers went off in my hand, I played with fire and gasoline, smoked some reeds, found some porn mags, got into fights, snuck out of the house, shoplifted some firecrackers from … hmm, actually they found out about that one. They were very disappointed, first time I ever got the silent treatment and damn did it hurt worse than the spanking I was expecting. But they were all learning experiences, and I wouldn’t be the same person I am today if I had missed out on too many of them. I’m glad I wasn’t over surveilled when I was a kid. (The go-cart incident wasn’t my parents fault, I was at a birthday party at a friend’s house that lived in the country.)

Hell, my first sexual experience was in kindergarten when the cute little girl next to me offerred to “show you mine if you show me yours”. (Naturally I made her go first :wink: ) But we were actually in class at the time! It was naptime but the room was lit by the sunlight from outside and the teacher was just on the other side of the room. At the age of five kids have a bit of a libido and quite a natural curiosity, there are just some things they’re going to do unless you hold their hand 24/7. (Better hold both hands actually.) But I accept that and believe that it is important to let kids know that it is inappropriate without freaking them out and scaring/scarring them over it if you happen to catch them at it.

So I’d like for my future child(ren) to have as much fun as I had, I just don’t know if I can actually bring myself to let them have that much autonomy as early as I had it. I feel like I’m going to wind up being a worrywart. I think though if we start relinquishing direct supervison graudally as he matures and demonstrates responsibility, we should be safe.

Then there are the abduction fears. I had hoped Uncle Cecil would set my mind at ease with this recent article

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/020712.html

but even though the stats were somewhat settling I still don’t feel entirely relieved. I want to move to the country and own lots of dogs. Rottweilers and mastiffs. They’re great with kids because they don’t have tails to be yanked. :smiley:

15

It is definitely a tough balance to achieve. If you watch your children too closely, they may never learn to be responsible and if you let them do anything they want, they may get themselves killed.

I had to walk several blocks to the bus stop when I was 6 years-old. My 8 year-old brother usually went with me, but I can only remember my mother going with us once (and that was just to show us where it was).

I suffered many injuries that I probably would not have suffered if an adult had been watching me and regulating my behavior, but then I probably would not be such a responsible adult today. Children need to be allowed to make mistakes so they can learn. Periodically the mistake is going to be so major that the child kills itself. When this happens I do not blame the parents. Every one of us has been in a situation as a child where we could have been killed. If just one factor had been different, we would not be alive. To blame parents for such misfortunes does not seem appropriate. Of course a parent could have prevented it if they had been around, but then again the child would not have died if the parent had not given birth to it to begin with. Bad things happen in life and sometimes there is no one to blame. As with everything that happens in life, all those involved are partially responsible and very rarely is there one person that deserves the blame.

So raise your kids however you like…and hope they don’t die.

Letting your kids play on the freeway might be negligent, but letting an 8 year-old play in a park with his friends…I wouldn’t call that negligent at all.

16

Procacious, you’re a pretty deep brother.

17

Another point that hasn’t been raised is the necessity of checking in periodically.

When I was 14, and newly arrived in a suburb after being born and raised in a rural community, a girl who would have been in my class and school went missing, then turned up in a field. Well, I didn’t have to have pictures drawn for me. I always made sure to, and did not have to be nagged into, inform my parents where I was going, who with, and approximately when I would return. I also called to let them know if I was leaving one house to go to another, or to the store or something. (I once asked a friend’s dad for use of the phone, and he almost fell off his chair when he found I was informing my mom that his daughter and I were going to get ice cream. Why didn’t she do that? he wondered aloud.)

But of course, nothing was good enough for my mom. I got hell if I was late by five damn minutes. And she also thought that if I told her where I was, telling her what I’d been doing should automatically follow. But the incident that still burns my ass went as follows.

In the fall of my senior year, I flew to another part of the country to visit a prospective college. When the visit was over, I had to go to a hotel to get the shuttle to the airport. In the parking lot, some clown in a pickup truck tried to engage me in conversation. I ignored him, then reported him to hotel security. My parents were so proud of me! Sensible and mature, that was me!

Sort of.

In the spring of the same year, I went out for a walk after dinner. All of a sudden, my dad cruises up behind me in the car. My mom had seen a van drive past right after I left. “Oh, you always hear of kids being abducted in vans!” True, that does happen. But I was 18, not 5. And I’d already proven, during my out-of-state trip, that I didn’t have rocks in my head. So WTF? Is 18 not old enough to cut the cord?

18

My parents let me run the neighborhood from very early on, and as soon as I was old enough, I walked or rode my bike to town several times. (It’s a small, rural town, but Main Street is two blocks long, and there’s a couple of restaurants.) I hiked the woods and cliffs a couple of miles from my home, I rode my bike to visit people three miles away, I left in the morning and came home by dark, generally.
Frankly, I don’t know what my parents were thinking. Hells bells. I got lost, fell down cliffs, almost fell in the river, had to run from town drunks…Then, when I was older (very early teens), I was assaulted a time or two, drank, smoked dope, had to run from more town drunks, got to hear a suicide’s last words (What an experience THAT was), and nearly got abducted by a man who later committed a murder.
I don’t let my little ones out of my sight, but they’re still under 4, and they will wander right off if I’m not nearby. My older kids are 12 and 15, and I do let them hike and hang out at the movies or the mall on occasion. My biggest concern with the older ones now is that they will bother other people, so we have serious talks not only about Strangers, but also about Bothering Strangers.
~karol