Pepper Paints

Unsupervised Kids With Kool Aid …. gasp!

If you ever pass me while running you may wonder why I am smiling or giggling-it’s probably because I am listening to a funny podcast. I love to listen to podcasts and while I run is a good time to try keeping up with them all. Lately I have been listening to  The Moth, RadioLab, This American Life, Fresh Air—Love NPR!

Recently I listened to House On Loon Lake on This American Life. The story takes place in the 1970′s –back when I was a kid. The main character, Adam,  and his friends are pretty  young-I think the story begins when he is about 10. (I listened to this several weeks ago so I forget the exact details but have been stirring up this post in my head ever since)  Adam  and his friends discover an abandon house during their summer vacation. To quote from the website:

Adam Beckman tells the first part of his story, about how, back in the 1970s, he and his friends broke into an abandoned house in the small town of Freedom, New Hampshire. The home turned out to be a perfect time capsule, containing the furniture, letters and personal effects of an entire family … abandoned for decades. It seemed like the family just vanished one day, leaving salt and pepper shakers on the table, notes on the bedroom mirror, and a wallet with money still inside. Adam and his friends read the letters, saving some as clues, and never forgot.

The thing that really struck me about this story is the fact that these young boys spent their summer vacation-unsupervised, sifting through this abandon house for an entire summer.They were having an adventure of a lifetime. But the fact that they were actually having this adventure is what is so cool to me. Their time was their own. It was their summer vacation. It wasn’t over scheduled with sports  practices and games and camps and mini-classes and summer gym to free up an hour during the regular school year to cram in more credits for real classes. Nope–no schedules. It was summer vacation.

I too grew up in the 7o’s with this same sort of “supervision”. “Where you going? Be home by dinner time ” mentality. My parents weren’t any more permissive than other parents. They weren’t driving us around and taking us to see every cool thing that came through our town. We occupied ourselves. We rode our bikes, played in the woods and in fields. We went to the pool and ate candy and ice cream and drank pop on a regular basis.  There were few parents at the pool and even fewer at the park. We weren’t obese, we weren’t hovered over, there weren’t too many expectations of us other than maybe 1 practice and 1 baseball game a week, don’t leave your bike behind the car or in the sun because your kick stand would melt into the hot asphalt( and my Dad didn’t like that.)

We ran the neighborhood and beyond. On Friday or Saturday nights my family would gather at my cousins where we would eat steak ,baked potatoes , baked beans and salad and then run their neighborhood, sneaking into the golf course and playing kick the can across all the neighbors yards until well after the 11 o’clock news when  Hoolihan and Big Chuck would start.

I would often spend the night at my cousins and in the morning we would get up and have our “cherry bread” for breakfast. (white bread dunked in cherry kool aid–it was awesome!) Then we would get on our bikes or skate boards and ride down the big hill and hang out on Euclid Ave and in Coulby Park for the day. When we got too hot we would head over to the library for some AC. If it rained we played in the garage. We didn’t have cell phones and we didn’t keep ID in our pockets “just in case.”  There was no talk of  “stranger danger”  or Mean World Syndrome. (it’s a real phenomenon- I didn’t make that up! But why would we be surprised by this–there is fear and distrust everywhere). And kids today are missing this  freedom.

They are missing spending their childhood in a child like way. Kids are tagged and numbered and scheduled and carted around. They are safely delivered to their destination that is well with in walking or biking distance. They are helmeted, sun-screened and not allowed to trust their instincts. Don’t walk in the woods, check for ticks,  watch out for poison ivy, stay out of the mud, call as soon as you get there and wash your hands. Don’t talk to strangers, don’t dill dally and who are you talking to on the Internets?  Parents are making sure to cover ALL the safety bases these days! Kids have so many rules and regulations that when they do get a little bit of free time they don’t even know how to handle it. Let alone how are they going to handle life with out Mom and Dad breathing down their necks and telling them what to do. Can you say–go crazy with all the new found freedom?!

I will not and do not live like this. I want my kids to do daring and dangerous stuff. I want them to know their world and have a handle on it. Go–be independent and figure stuff out with your friends. If you need me I am here. ( But funny thing is, they don’t need me too much for that kind of stuff. They are self reliant and self confident in their world. ) I am a hands on parent but only to a certain degree.  And I think living in the real world where they are making real decisions makes all the difference.  I am not scheduling their days or their play dates  or their bed times. I want them to go into the world, the park, the woods, the bus,  the mall, the library, to restaurants and stores by themselves without me there controlling what they buy and how they spend THEIR money.  They are perfectly capable to interact with kids and adults and make most of their own decisions.

At a conference I attended John Taylor Gatto talked about how when Richard Branson was young his Mom took him for a drive and then stopped the car and asked if he knew the way home. He said he did and she told him to walk. He did and said it was one of the greatest learning experiences of his life. Extreme-yes.  But following your kid around with an appointment book and a bottle of water and a protein bar is also ridiculous.  Let them go. They crime rate in this country is at a 30 year low!!! For goodness sake–turn off your 24 hr news updates and quit reading all the bad news in the newspaper.  Read this article about how CSI Changed Parenting.  Don’t be so afraid to let your kids play outside and maybe even unattended! Let them have adventures. Chances are more than good that they will be unharmed and fine!! And the chances are even grater that they will have fun and learn more real life stuff  than you could ever artificially  schedule for them.

So who is going to join me on  Saturday May 22 for TAKE YOUR CHILD TO THE PARK AND LEAVE THEM THERE day??? Maybe this could be a small step for those who fear the reaper…leave your kids for just a short amount of time until you can get used to the idea that they will be fine with out you. And they can realize just how powerful they are to be able to navigate the playground on their own. There is still time. Summer break is still about a month away. You have time to wean your self from each other just a little bit so that kids can have real, unsupervised adventures this summer!

And don’t send them with water–send kool-aid–they like it better and chances are–that’s not gonna kill them either

Tags: Adam Beckman, adventure, American, bike, biking, child, childhood, Children, conference, control, Coulby Park, danger, distrust, education, Euclid, family, fear, freedom, fresh air, friends, fun, Hoolihan, kid, Kids, kool aid, Learning, Library, Life, loon lake, mentality, neighborhood, neighbors, Night, Parent, Parenting, parents, park, phenomenon, playground, podcast, podcasts, pool, practice, school, story, stranger, summer, summer vacation, supervision, this american life