Thursday, January 15, 2015

Supervised kids

It's so frustrating raising kids in an era of required supervision.  Sure kids should not be left in danger or abandoned.  For me the stress of someone thinking my child is unsupervised, is worse than the fear that something bad might actually happen to them.

If the get kidnapped, I can yell at someone.  If they fall out of a tree I can take them to the hospital.  But if the police show up because my kids are in my front yard....  Or if someone sees them at a playground and doesn't notice me standing by the car with the sleeping child...

At what point are kids allowed to do things by themselves?  And how are they supposed to learn that life is not so scary, in the shadow of the ever present fear? 

I've seen kids at the library and thought "Where is their mom/dad?"  Our library recently changed to an enclosed area.  So it's easier, or harder to leave them unattended.  I leave them in there together while I go check out books.  I'm literally 10 steps from the room they are in.  But I worry that someone is going to think I'm leaving them "unattended".

I think that having kids involved in activities lends itself well to dropping them off and picking them up.  Obviously.  But they are never unsupervised.  You see them to the door, you pick them up.

M takes piano and if it weren't for the desire for me to attend the lesson I would enjoy dropping her off.  Also, the teacher has a family, so my kids can play with her kids and it's fine.

I'm letting M and G make their breakfast lately.  They can cook some things.  I just want them to know how to be safe, but not become paralyzed by fear.  Sheesh!

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