FREE-RANGE KIDS

Several years ago, while working on a consulting project in the Ottawa area, I sat in the concourse of an office building complex eating my lunch.  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a group of pre-schoolers walking through the concourse with their adult supervisors.  I actually heard them before I saw them.  My jaw dropped when I noticed they were tethered like a team of sled dogs, their wrists tied to a rope that held them all together.

The previous weekend, Elva and I had visited our niece, Dominique, and nephews Denis and Miguel, who lived in a rural area of Prince Edward Island.  Their father kept several breeds of poultry, a dog, and many cats, and their huge yard featured a garden, an orchard, outbuildings, and place for a treehouse.  As I sat there hoping my eyes were playing tricks on me, I was struck by the contrast between the poor little creatures I was looking at and my niece and nephews, and it reminded me of how child rearing has changed since I grew up in Wellington.

My friends and I swam unsupervised in the Ellis River and Barlow’s Pond; we climbed trees and built forts in the woods; we made fires; we built tunnels from hay bales in Agno’s loft; we tunnelled into snow banks behind Cliff’s barn; we skated on the sewage lagoon on ice that was too thin; and we climbed onto boxcars in the rail yard when we weren’t supposed to.  We even built a zip line once using a rope tied between two trees.  Yes, I fell many times and, yes, I got hurt.  So did others.  But it never stopped us, and our parents allowed us our freedom.  We were having too much fun!

At Easter, Elva and I visited our grandchildren, Samuel and Natalie.  They live with their parents in a semi-rural area of Saint John in a small subdivision on a dead-end street, surrounded by forest.  Old enough now to play outside by themselves, they have the run of their spacious yard.  They clamber on their gym set, ride their bikes, skateboards and scooters, and even climb the odd tree.  Samuel is old enough to make a fire from a pile of leaves, using a magnifying glass; just like my cousin, Aubrey, taught me to do when I was Samuel’s age.  Before long, he’ll be burning his name into the front step!  I loved watching them explore their world.

Last week, Jacques and Isabelle sent us a video of our granddaughter, Lucie, climbing on playground equipment in a park in Edmonton.  She’ll be two later this month and is well on her way to becoming a free-range kid as well, just like Pépé Jean-Paul and Mémé Elva were in our youth.

On my way home from Saint John, I listened to CBC interview the principal of a school in Auckland, New Zealand on Anna Maria Tremonti’s program, The Current http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2014/04/21/playing/   Bruce McLachlan explained what happened at Auckland’s Westlake Primary School when they decided to ban playground rules.  Amazing things in fact: a decline in rates of bullying, injuries and vandalism, as well as an increase in students’ concentration during class.  Students flourished happily in their new-found freedom.

Getting rid of traditional health and safety-based playground rules meant that students at the school could climb trees, ride skateboards, and play all kinds of games during recess.  They were also allowed to play in a “loose parts pit” containing junk pieces such as wood, old tires, and an old fire hose.  Principal McLachlan was asked to explain how banning playground rules led to a reduction in bullying.  His answer: “The kids are too busy to even think about bullying.  They’re not bored anymore.”  They also discovered that children were so occupied with the activities that the school did not need its timeout area anymore or as many teachers patrolling the playground.

The prestigious Economist magazine published an article on the subject this past January.  Here are several excerpts:

Thanks to helicopter parents and armies of lawyers, today’s primary-school children lead more risk-averse but less science-rich lives.  Playtimes are heavily supervised interludes of restricted play on health-and-safety-approved equipment, hurriedly cancelled if something terrible—say, a light rain shower—threatens. Unsurprisingly, many kids get bored, which means fights, bullying, vandalism and worse.  Not for nothing are today’s playtimes so tightly controlled.

Researchers expect kids taking part in the [Auckland] project will be better able to handle risk when they’re older, when more is at stake.  Better to discover the pain of a bike mishap at age 6 than a car crash at age 16.

Parents don’t sue in New Zealand; in America and Australia they do nothing but. Since many current parents were cossetted when young, there are at least two generations of “bubble-wrapped” kids to pop before the dream of free-range schooling can come true.

I think we’ve become over-protective of our kids, and I say this even with the experience of almost having lost a child to drowning.  Our daughter, Sylvie, fell into the river that ran alongside our yard when she was just short of her fourth birthday.  Had it not been for the quick action of our neighbor, Diane Bouchard, she might not be with us today.  It just wasn’t her time.

Needless to say, Elva and I learned a valuable lesson, but it didn’t cause us to over-protect our children.  In fact, I savour the moments when my now-adult children confess to childhood pranks previously unknown to us, many of them involving considerable risk.  I truly believe they learned about risk at a very young age.  I hope we gave them enough freedom to explore.

And so, I wonder how those poor little creatures I saw in the concourse of the mall in Ottawa that day are coming along in their intellectual and physical development.  Do their parents let them ride their bikes on neighbourhood streets?  Do they let them climb trees?  Do they give them the freedom to take risks?  Do they even let them out of the house alone?

I’m thankful that I was raised during a time when kids could be kids, and unstructured play was the way of our world.

As everyone knows, when children reach their teenage years, the risks are multiplied considerably.  As we say in French: Petits enfants, petits problèmes; grands enfants, gros problèmes!  Raising children is the most important responsibility given to parents.  Giving them the tools and strategies they need to survive is time well spent.  But a degree of freedom is essential.  And the sooner the better!