As a parent, and as many of you might, I often ask myself if what I am doing is right? Or  if how I raise Cora or how I spend my time is the correct way?  As Lenore said “We live in a self-help world and it is not  the healthiest or best thing we could be doing for our kids”

Living in a self-help or at least self-reflecting world leaves room for a gazillion books, magazines and television programs made to ‘educate us’ on the ways of parenthood.  But our feeling that we need to get the information seems rooted in feelings of being inadequate or ill prepared for the task.  That is why news headlines are written in a sensational way:  Top 10 things you must have to have fun outdoors, or this (blank) object can cause your child to die, stay tuned!

Lenore Skenazy wrote another one of those help book for parents, but she did so with the basic idea that you should get rid of other parenting books and hers as well.  You know what is good for your child.

A few years ago, she followed her attuned and loving mother’s instinct and let her 9 year old son ride a New York City subway by himself.  Because of this she got a lot of bad press as a mother, but much attention.  Some have blamed her for using her son as an experiment.

Because of the experience she let her child have, Lenore got many headlines touting her as the  worst mom in the world.  Because of this she lost a lot of sleep  for a while and really questioned herself about whether people where correct in saying she was deliberately putting her son in harm’s way.  Then she realized she was doing the right thing: she was'nt teaching her son a lesson but letting him build his own confidence.  Recently she appeared on an Australian television series that started the story:  Learn about the craze that is sweeping America: Pre-arranged kids.

After starting the research for her book, Free Range Kids, Lenore realized that she had to change some things in her highly-scheduled Manhattanite life.  Her sons were in three days of Hebrew school, had music lessons they did not enjoy and had never really played outside.  Her sons have now dropped  those activities and have free range of the park.

When I was in first grade, I walked to school.  When I was in fifth grade, I took the subway by myself in Montreal after a 1 KM walk from home.  In ninth grade, I started taking the New York City Subway by myself and would even take along a three year old boy I baby sat at times.  One time, the subway was all in chaos and I realized that it would take me hours to get home, so I wanted to call my father.  When I asked police officers to lend me a quarter, they let me stand there for five minutes while they debated if I was a panhandler. When I shared this with Lenore she said:

“Difficult situations that you had to overcome define who you are. Overcoming things that are dismaying or daunting and figuring out how to do them will be a defining moment in your life”.  It helps you to create a sense of the world and balance out the good and bad.

Lenore, who lives on the 18^th floor of a Manhatan apartment overlooking a concrete pad and the United Nations school playground, finds that letting her children go outside allows them to explore the natural world in their own way.  They go to the park, see worms on sidewalks, grow plants, have pets, go looking for evidence of nature, and so on.

If you are afraid to let your children go outside, turn off the television and go walk around yourself and see how many people are hiding behind bushes or what dangers are really present in your neighborhood.  In most cases, it's likely you will realize that there are no real immediate dangers.

One in every 1.5 million kids will be taken by strangers this year.  This statistic scares people but it shouldn't.  It means that on average, it would take 750,000 years of your child standing outside alone, 24/7, for it to be likely that your child would be taken by a stranger. “ It is so unlikely, but news channels get listeners by creating sensational headlines about scary stories and horrific events.  If nothing bad is going on in your city, then they look for old stories or talk about other areas of the country which makes you think that all places are dangerous,”  Lenore explains.

 “If you look at the statistics”, Lenore explains, “being inside is worse than being outside”.  Having your children explore outdoors on their own enables them to be more confident, to take care of themselves and, as a parent, you can see them stand up for themselves and assert themselves.  If you teach your kids that all strangers are not bad, and that asking for help from someone, a shop owner or calling 911 are all good things.  Having a fear of all strangers is not natural and actually does not teach reality to your kids.  Children need to learn how to differentiate between the weirdoes and the regular citizens on the street.  Children grow self confident and more secure.”

We are becoming a society that is now making up things to be afraid of or judge unsafe.  For example, certain materials can no longer be used in insoles because of the fear that a child may eat them.  A part of the ball point pen may be dangerous to the health of toddlers, so they are working on eliminating it.

“We need mobiles that only play award winning lullabies” , explains Lenore. What does that tell a parent who loves to sing tot their child but can’t even carry a tune? That he should stop?  As parents we have to bend over backwards to be considered good parents. “A recent article in the Washington Post that listed ideas on how to delight your baby, explained that you could kiss her on the nose. Do we need articles to teach us this?”

Magazines exist to turn a profit, and they need  people to read them.  They have tactics to make sure that we do.  I shared with Lenore the thought that one of the things they do is make us believe that we don’t know how to do something, when in fact we do. Lenore responded by noting that people buy baby monitors for one bedroom apartments, or read articles with headlines like:  Is your car seat really safe?  Or worry about recalls for minor things like an arm being pinched when folding a stroller.  "Is that really a hazard or an accident?”

Lenore advises us to overcome our fear of dirt in order to get city kids outdoors:  “Dirt is good for children.  The cleaner and cleaner you make your environment, the body has a hard time figuring out the difference between good and bad germs.  If you keep children from meeting the world, everyone seems like a terrifying stranger.” The outdoors teach you how to be street smart, and feel at ease.

“ If children don’t like it at first, expose them to a park with a picnic blanket. With exposure they will learn to embrace the outdoors," she states “ Don’t over react, have fun, you don’t need to follow the advice of a four page article on how to be sun safe and prepared for the outdoors.”

Lenore thinks that we should go back to the original model of supportive parenting, where we relied on friends for advice, where we were supportive of one another and less judgmental.  She really likes Dr.Spock’s books that reassure parents and tell them to follow their intuition.  “ Relax, not everything you do has an impact on your children. Everything is presented as a bigger deal than it has to be.”  Books that explain to women what to eat when they are pregnant drive her crazy.  She feels that women generally know what they should eat and not eat and that following a strict regimen will just make women go crazy.  We noted that most pregnant women across the world have only a few ingredients available to them in their local environments and their children are born just as healthy.

When I asked her if she thought that all the advice books had helped us be better parents, she explained that we were much better at not yelling at kids or using corporal punishment, but that they made us second guess everything we do and what impact it will have on their development.  She quotes a study that reports that a child who grows up thinking they are less loved than another ends up turning out the same.

Stay tuned, next week, for part 2 of my interview,

Heidi

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