Quit Trying to be So Safe!

Hi Readers! This was a comment on the post two below this one, and I was nodding along so much, I decided to give it its own post. It’s by a woman named Nanci, who describes herself as “a Midwest mom of two.” — L.

Dear Free-Range Kids: ….  I really think the bottom line problem is that our society today is “too safe.”  When we begin to defeat all the things that used to be dangerous, we lose quite a bit of perspective.  We start to gauge safety/danger against absolute safety.

One hundred and fifty years ago it was almost unheard of for any family to have all of its children survive to adulthood.  There were so many dangers back then, from diseases to wild animals, to harsh living conditions, to dangerous machinery and so on.  Everyone expected people to die.  No one looked for someone to blame when a particularly cold winter claimed many lives, or an outbreak of typhus swept through.  Even 75 years ago young people were being killed by polio and world wars.

Nowadays, though, America is so safe that we have begun to see death as unnatural, especially the death of a child. “Surely something can be done to prevent it!  Surely if the parents would have just done a better job, been more vigilant, their child would be okay!” And so now we have generations growing up with the idea that if you protect enough you can prevent any tragedy. This is America, it’s 2011, we have good hospitals, doctors, everything is state of the art, surely there is no place in this society for children to die!

And now, after anything that kills a child, no matter how freakish the accident,  a product appears on the market within months that would have prevented it (and normal life) from happening.

In Third World countries they do not have these issues with Free-Range Parenting.  There, because children do still die, at least the parents have the freedom to live without the fear that they will be blamed if they don’t create a absolutely safe environment for their children.  They know it’s impossible! Unfortunately in America we are so close to complete safety that we can’t see that it’s an illusion that will destroy us if we seek it.

There has never been a safer place or time in history to raise children than America in 2011, and yet parents are more paranoid than they have ever been.  Parents today will only accept absolute safety, nothing less. Unfortunately the victims of this screwed-up thinking are their children, and eventually all of us, because as we all know the children are the future.  Too bad this next generation will be living in their parents’ basements playing video games into their 30s. — Nanci

On Swim Shoes, Summer and “Seeing” What Matters

Hi Readers — Just got this poignant note from a young woman who sees life, risk and joy pretty clearly! L.

Dear Free-Range Kids: I am fortunate to live in a community with several wonderful county parks and, growing up, swimming in the lakes there was a  regular part of summer. But then life got hectic and I hadn’t been to the lakes in years, so to celebrate the 4th of July, my parents and I decided it was time to revisit one.

As a child, I never wore my swim shoes in to the water. My siblings and I would stake our claim at a picnic table or lounge chair where we would drop our shoes,  run across boiling hot pavement, sink our toes into to warm sand and  then bounce joyously in the water all afternoon. I could hardly wait to re-live those memories.

Unfortunately, since those days, Mom has heard stories of shards of glass, even needles, piercing children’s feet at the lake, so she did not want me to take off my swim shoes this time.

I am 21 years old, so I could have refused to listen, but I decided maybe she had a point. Maybe we DO have to be more careful these days. I kept them on. But then…something just wasn’t right. I couldn’t bounce around the way I remembered, or kick my feet to swim, because the shoes weighed me down. I found myself standing sullenly in the water thinking I might as well have just stayed on land.

“Can I please, please PLEASE take off my shoes?”

“Okay, but if you hurt yourself–”

“I will take full responsibility for it,” I promised.

Instantly, my shoes were off, my day was transformed and my feet were never even scratched. But after that experience, this blog came to mind.

I would say my mom was a Free-Range parent when my three older siblings and I were growing up. When the weather was beautiful, she would not allow us to sit inside, watching television. And although it wasn’t safe for me to do so, being totally blind in a community with no sidewalks, my siblings would frequently bike to the grocery store or walk to a friend’s house. So to learn that even my own mother had become consumed by fear surprised me.

Of course, those stories of children contracting diseases after stepping on a needle at the beach are horrible. [NOTE FROM LENORE: And rarer than shark attacks!] But while I don’t have statistics about this, the fact that this never happened to me or my siblings or anyone I know  makes me think that,  in the same way kidnapping is so unlikely that it is not worth staying locked in the house, the likelihood of stepping on a needle at the beach is not strong enough to justify missing out on the incredible joy of swimming barefoot. I hope today’s kids don’t.– Allison Nastoff

Allison is a college student majoring in journalism at Carroll
University in Wisconsin. 

Old-fashioned fun at the beach. (Before the needles stories...)

What Is The LEAST Dangerous, Cutest Thing We Can Outlaw Next?

Hi Readers: Here we go again. For the sake of the children (somehow), schools are looking at whether they should banish class pets. After all, they could spread DISEASE! And they are (somehow) a liability! And ________________!  (Fill in the blank with something else bad they do. I know that’s kind of hard, but if you’re a pencil-pushing killjoy, keep trying. You can do it.) According to The Herald, in Everett, Washington:

…school districts have begun adopting policies that in many cases limit or even ban animals in the classroom unless they’re part of science projects.

Animals may be cute and fun to be around. But they can spread disease and cause allergic reactions in students. And students are exposed to animal wastes.

With these and potential liability concerns, the state is asking school districts to draw up policies on what animals, other than service animals, should be allowed in schools.

How about those scary animals that have clipboards and dream up worst case scenarios for every aspect of childhood? Let’s ban THOSE! But no, first we must worry more about The Children:

“You have to be very cautious about the environment in which they learn,” [Dept. of Health spokesman] Moyer said.

Students can be infected with bacteria, such as E. coli, MRSA or salmonella, after touching pets and not washing their hands, said Nickol Finch, who heads the exotic and wildlife services at Washington State University.

Students can get ringworm from guinea pigs, she said. And turtles, snakes and lizards can spread salmonella.

Germs can be passed when a child shares lunch with an animal, allowing it to take a bite of a carrot, for example, and then the child eats the rest of the vegetable.

Influenza, including H1N1, can be passed from humans to ferrets, or from ferrets to humans, she said.

No one’s saying we live in a disease-free world.  But to suddenly worry that pets are spreading MRSA is to imagine a Michael Crichton-esque scenario, at best. My son had a bunny in his kindergarten classroom and the only thing it spread was joy.

So here’s my (usual) plea: Instead of looking at life through the lens of “What if?” and Worst-First Thinking (A bunny? What if it spreads the PLAGUE?), let us step back, take a deep breath and chill. Like a lizard. — L

Okay, this is ONE animal I might ban from school. (It was filed in Flickr under "hamster"!!!)

We KNEW It! Walking to School Good for Kids’ Hearts

Hi Readers! New research shows, “A Simple Morning Walk to School Could Reduce Stress Reactivity…” well, it’s a really long title (41 words!). But basically,  a new study at the University of Buffalo concluded that walking to school seems to reduce the amount of stress a heart feels a little later, and that’s good because such stress can lead, down the road, to cardiovascular disease.

The study was a small, slightly strange one that compared 20 kids who sat in a chair and saw a slide show of passing suburbia to 20 kids who walked a mile on a treadmill while carrying school backpacks and also seeing the suburban slideshow.

A little while later both groups were given a test. On average, the heart rate among the walkers went up 3 beats per minute, but it went up 11 beats in the ones who were “chauffeured.” The chauffeured kids also exhibited more stress.

Look, I’m not getting all the scientific terminology exactly right — the study also talks about systolic blood pressure, which I’ve never understood — but the point is: Walking to school is good.

Which you knew. And I knew. And walking would be good even if it didn’t do a darn thing for cardiovascular anything. It’s just good to get fresh air, and get to know your neighborhood and have a little unstructured time. But it’s always nice to have a little study to whip out when parents say, “I would NEVER let my child walk to school! It’s too dangerous!”

And heart disease isn’t? — Lenore

New Law to “Protect” Kids from Germs Would Kill Band Program

Hi Readers — Get ready to start gnashing. A bill in Massachusetts would require all schools there to “professionally” sterlize their band isntruments, according to this article in the Wicked Local Sumerville (great name!). And guess what? Only one company in Massachusetts does this.

The owner of that company, a dentist, insists that without this pricey sterilization — $20-$30 per instrument and done twice a year — children’s health is at risk. But an epidemilogist at the Mass. Department of Public Health, Alfred DiMaria,  points out in the article that:

…there has never been a documented outbreak of illness associated with shared band instruments, and it is very unlikely outbreaks have gone undetected by health departments across the country….”There is no evidence that it’s a problem. I can’t argue that it’s [not] a theoretical possibility, but we don’t really mandate things are theoretical.”

Ah, but there is the rub: Increasingly, we do. Just look at the story a few posts below this one — the one where a Florida school won’t let a child walk out of school to his or her parent’s car without an escort, just “in case” something bad COULD happen. Or look at the schools that ban tag, “in case” someone could get hurt. Look at the new Federal law insisting that every part of every item sold to children be tested for lead, just “in case” a child eats his sock, or the insole of her shoe. Look at all the park districts that have uprooted their see-saws and merry-go-rounds “in case” of an accident. “What if???” hysteria is driving us mad with unnecessary precaution.

Mind you, the Massachusetts schools already DO sterilize their instruments according to the manufacturers’ guidelines. This “professional” sterilization is just an extra, unnecessary, pricey step — one that could bankrupt some schools’  band programs.

Talk about a cure that’s worse than the disease. Particularly when there isn’t any disease to begin with. — Lenore