Parents of the millennials think they
are helping their children by keeping them safe. However, overprotective
parenting is being linked to a lack of child development relating to
independence. Children need to be able to figure out their own paths and to
explore their surroundings, which are constantly being monitored and hindered
upon by adults. When children do get access to unsupervised play however, they
expand on their knowledge of their surroundings and figure out what to do
themselves, without help from adults. Children should be allowed to have some
risky play to grow as a human and to learn how to handle experiences on their
own.
Risky play will always be a necessity of
life, whether adults or other authority figures will try to stop is irrelevant,
it will happen. Kids need to be able to experience some things on their own to
learn how to deal with adult situations better. If they are confined to their
own household and the protections of their parents they will be safe, but they
will never learn about what is in the world outside of the house, what some of
the other kids are doing, which their parents probably wouldn't approve of
without their supervision. Growing up, I definitely stayed inside the house a
lot, or in my backyard where my parents could see me. However, every once in a
while I would take my bike and ride it around the block, to where my parents
couldn't see me and I felt free. I was by myself, and I was a paranoid kid, so
I wasn't worried about where my parents were, I was more worried about the
people walking along the sidewalks or scary cars driving by. Over time, I
became more comfortable with doing things without adult supervision, like
walking home from school and staying home by myself, and I continued to grow as
a person thanks to that.
Mary E. Stapleton School was right down
the street, exactly one mile away from my house. Cameron Middle school was
exactly in between my house and Stapleton, exactly one mile away. When I was in
middle school, I did not like being home alone, so I would always walk over to
my mom’s work, Stapleton, where she is a kindergarten teacher. My brother is
two years older, and would walk with me there, with his friends and my friends
tagging along too. For whatever reason, I wanted to get back to Stapleton fast,
so I had my brother’s friend ride my over, with me standing on his bicycle
pegs. Everything was fine as we we’re going there, but as we were getting close
I thought it would be a great idea to jump off the pegs, instead of waiting for
him to stop. I did, ended up doing a flip, and I landed on my back. I ended up
being fine, and I did not realize how scary it was until after the fact. There
were not adults involved, and I walked away with just a couple of scrapes. I
did not tell anyone because no adults were there for it and I was not too badly
hurt, so I did not see the problem with it. This radically different than the normal
me, who would have sat there and cried.[Ma1] This type of
speedy, unsupervised play could have gotten me seriously injured, but it did
not.
Adults have begun to move away from
risky play because they don’t want to be seen as a bad parent. Du[Ma2] ring her
article, “The Overprotected Kid”, Rosin stated “As the Tribune reader had intuited, the cultural
understanding of acceptable risk began to shift, such that any known risk
became nearly synonymous with hazard”.[Ma3] This quote brings out a lot of meaning, and
an almost chicken and the egg situation. Did the overprotected kid come first,
and harsher regulation due to parent’s needs, or did the parents hear about
accidents, push for higher regulations, and then just snowball from there? If
my parents were there when I jumped off the pegs, I couldn’t even fathom what
would have happened. I did something dangerous, however I took responsibility
for myself and I ended up okay. The types of overprotected parents talked about
in the article probably would have quarantined the whole block and called in
every agency imaginable to get something done about, while simultaneously
lobbying in the state congress to get a ban on bicycle pegs.
Rosin had been writing the
article about this type of parenting where kids do their own thing and then she
finally sees her kid do it. When she watches her son, she thinks he is going to
cry, but instead he stands up and shakes it off. I believe in this moment she
realizes that it can be a good thing for kids to learn by themselves without
being sheltered. During the article, she was writing it like a stranger looking
in, comparing her experience to the modern child’s experience, and even she had
forgotten what she had done as a child for she was not prepared to let her kid
go free, yet he thrived when he got to the playground. I think the generations
are polarizing, one generation gives too little freedom, so the next gives too
much. There needs to be a balance in order to have a healthy lifestyle, because
being too cooped up can be bad for someone, but being always free can be just
as bad. Once a balance is found, parents can be better parents.
Risky play is necessary for
the development of children, and while it is not okay all the time, it should
be permitted to help foster our children’s learning. Parents, at the heart of
things, are only looking out for what is best for their children because they
truly care about them and want them to succeed. However, these parents are
shielding their children from the world. By letting children have the essence
of freedom, they will become more comfortable with their surroundings. Children need to grow on their own, and if
adults are putting a stop to that, it threatens the child’s development, which
is ironic because the adults think they are helping the child grow up normally.
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