Free Range Parenting?...

Basically free-range parenting is the opposite of intensive parenting (which free-rangers would call: "overprotective" or "helicopter" parenting...)

It's the idea that if we wrap our children in cotton wool, and don't let them experience anything dangerous, we will raise an army of un-feeling robotic psycho-killers.

Or, more accurately, (meaning: without my dramatizing...) it's about hands off parenting. Teaching children to be self-sufficient. To not fear the world, but to see it for its experiences and opportunities from a young age.

This involves children being encouraged to play outside, able to wander independently. Parents do not freak out and run to get a coat if it starts to rain, or if they happen to look outside and see their child conversing with a stranger. If a child gets hurt, or sick, it is accepted as a natural part of growing up.

I am considered an "Intensive" parent.

I don't have excessive issues with germs. I'm not going to use one of those little covers that you put over the supermarket trolley to stop your child from touching it.
Rolling around in mud, eating food off the floor, and dog slobber is all part of being a child. I don't even own a hand sanitizer (gasp!)

Physical stuff is the same. Even though I flinch something wicked whenever one of my children falls, I'll still sprinkle the kitchen floor with baby powder, help them put on their socks, and watch them "ice skating". Their legs are almost entirely covered in bruises, but they love it.

The boys climb trees, ride motorbikes, and target shoot with guns. All of this is done under strict hands-on supervision, with many discussions involving rules and answering any questions that might arise along the way.

But I will not let them play in a public place unsupervised. I don't care if the playground is surrounded by a fence. I'm not worried about them getting out, I'm worried about what could get in.

And I believe that they should understand the risks, not to invoke fear, but caution. Because while the world is full of experiences and opportunities, it is also full of dangers that do not disappear simply because you are ignorant of them.

Self sufficiency will come on slowly, in direct relation to age, ability and experience. This just makes sense to me.
Why is it important for a five year old to be able to walk to the store by themselves? Seriously, they will probably learn to do it before they move out of home. (I do understand that the risk of them being snatched off the street is relatively small, but the commonly accepted idea of if they do something once and survive, then it must be safe, is mind boggling to me.)

I love the idea that "strangers are just friends you haven't met yet." and children could walk freely and safely amongst them, but that is not the world I live in, and children are not able to protect themselves.

We all have our own level of free-range comfort. We are all trying to grow great adults out of little people, which is an amazing amount of responsibility all on it's own.
So lets not judge each other for how we choose to go about it. We all do what we think is best, otherwise we wouldn't be doing it that way, but there is always room to learn.


Do you like how I just solved the whole issue with one little cliche sentence? You're welcome :)


xox

Acceptance...

It's about 10.30pm, and I am reading blogs, when I hear Connahs bedroom door close. This happens most nights - He gets up to come into our room, and always closes his bedroom door on the way out, to stop any cats getting in. (He hates cats in his room.)
So I immediately get up to take him back to his own bed. I go past his room on the way to collect him, and open his door so I don't have to juggle a sleepy Connah and a door handle, and happen to glance at his bed.

He is in his bed. Sleeping. With the blankets neatly tucked up to his chin, just like I left him three hours ago.

Who the fuck closed the door?

I check his room, and discover his sliding door is unlocked and unbolted - we had been playing outside earlier and I'd forgotten to lock it when we were done.

I run to the Attacks room. He is still there, sleeping.

Mark proceeds to check every corner of the house, including a perimeter search with the dog (dog finally came in handy...) Which turns up nothing.

In all likely hood, Connah has closed it himself. (Or really un-likely hood, since he hates having his door shut and would never intentionally close it with himself on the inside, let alone put himself back to bed without calling out to me...)

Maybe sleepwalking?....

Mark goes to bed, and I stay up way later than I intend. To hover ineffectually over the monitors, listening for any signs of disturbance.

I finally decide to go to bed, resigned to the fact that I will get no sleep. I open the door to the hallway, and almost trip over Jax, who Mark had stationed outside Connahs open door.

I had one of those amazing moments where everything changes completely, though nothing has actually changed except my perception.

I have a dog.

I slept. And I was able to sleep because I knew that there was a Tyrannosaurus Rex wearing a dog coat patrolling the hallway. Nothing was getting in last night without us knowing about it.

Because I have a dog. (I feel like I'm at an AA meeting: "Hello, my name is Rachael, and I have a dog....")

I have fought against him for so long, trying to make him have as little an impact on my life as possible, (which, as it turns out, is not possible at all. He is fricken HUGE. And jumpy. You try to ignore something that is sailing about over your head, knocking you into trees as you try to make your way from the front door to the car. It's hard.)

The idea of actually trying to include him in my life seems odd. And a little bit ludicrous. The fact that he has managed to get through my resentment and distaste for him, and secretly forge a bond so that I was able to trust him to keep us safe while we were sleeping is fricken amazing. And a little sneaky.

So, it's taken a year to get here: I have a dog. I don't know if I'll ever love him, but I can appreciate him now. He has stopped staring at me for extended periods of time just to be annoying. He no longer eats the cat food every day deliberately to make my life more difficult - he does it because he's hungry - even though he's already been fed 12 times. He now smells like fresh daisies instead of the unusually strong musty wet dog that has been trapped inside a hot box for 6 months perfume that used to waft in a ten foot radius around him. (That one is a lie - he still smells like wet dog.) And when he sails about over my head knocking me around, he kindly misses the trees about half the time.

Perception is great.


xox