In Reply to: Appreciate your thoughts.. (Children).. posted by Balimagic on Sunday, 28. August 2005 at 15:09 Bali Time:
I don't have kids. But when I was seven, I regularly spent several hours unsupervised. I would ride my bike a few kilometers away from home and wander around the shops. I'd climb trees and chop bits of wood with an axe. I built a billy-cart, mainly by myself and sometimes with help from other 7-8 year-olds, all of us weilding hammers and saws and using electric drills. And then we'd go and hurl down some ridiculous hill and get bruised from head to foot, and then do it again the next day.
We went fishing, lit fires, built bows and arrows. A few years later we played with bb guns (only on my cousin's farm, though). We rode horses and motorbikes before we were ten. We went swimming at the pool and in in the river unsupervised when we were no older than eight.
(I'm surprised that someone posted that her child couldn't swim. Isn't swimming part of primary school education any more? Don't parents teach their kids to swim any more? Or are they supposed to learn it on their X-Box now? What's going on out there?)
It was the done thing, back then. There were no fences around pools, no safety plugs in the sockets, and we probably could have choked on half our toys. We did crazy things and took a lot of risks and got hurt at least once a week.
And yeh, a few kids died one way or another. But not enough to punish all future children forever by taking away all their freedom.
Kids still go crazy these days. It's just that they have to wait until their eighteen.
As far as being molested goes... yes, there is and will always be a threat that a stranger will do something dodgy. But the fact remains that around 80-90% of children are molested by either a family member or a close family friend. Maybe that's because people are always more careful around strangers, or maybe it's because perverts know how to appear trustworthy.
So you probably have to find a balance somewhere between putting your child at risk and letting them get hurt so that they learn. If you're over-protective, they might subconsciously fear everything forever. If you're too reckless about it, they may die.
Personally, I'm glad I had the childhood I had, even though I was often in situations where I could have died if things went wrong. Actually, things did often go wrong, but not fatally. I think my childhood prepared me well for adulthood. On the other hand... a few inches one way or the other, and I may not have seen adulthood. But would I be the person I am today if I'd been forced to stay within sight of my mother instead of being allowed to explore my limits?
I've probably confused you even more. But really, the only people who know the answer to your question are you and your children. The discussion you have among yourselves will be more meaningful than what this forum can give you.