Are you a helicopter parent to a teacup child?

http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/

Somebody turned me onto this blog a month or so ago and I fell in love.

Our poor society has everybody so scared and so "safe" that nobody is getting the chance to have fun!  I admit to worrying about my daughter when she's out and about, but that would never make me restrict her from the things I thoroughly enjoyed doing as a kid. I'm not anti-safety but I'm not going to be anti-fun either.

Reading through the blog there are so many things that make me irate with how crazy people have gotten! No more balloons? No more riding your bike 2 blocks to school? No more swings on playgrounds? I am very glad I live where I live and this hasn't come to every ones attention as being the "in" parenting method.

I had to wear a life jacket and a helmet when I was younger, but I was allowed on the trampoline and we would climb on top of our swing set as others were swinging and no it was not cemented into the ground (you know how it gets to rocking) :-) We always had a scrape or a bruise of some sort and they usually weren't found until a couple days after it happened and nobody could remember where they came from. My little brothers and I used to float the ditches during the summer since we didn't have pool (we did this during the day while my parents were both working) and we climbed trees and rode our horses bareback. We walked 9 blocks from daycare to school when we were in the 3rd and 1st grade and were never abducted or raped.  The boys only had stitches a couple times and I don't recall many broken bones. We had a blast being kids and learned how to deal with sticky situations on our own. We were independent and enjoyed being outside.
We always made fun of the home schooled children (no offense to any of you) that were stuck to mommy's side for the first 18 years of their life and then when they went off to college and into the real world they went crazy wild and spent 8 straight months drinking, having sex and doing drugs because they hadn't been subjected to anything and didn't know how to be social. This is what these people are subjecting their children too! I'm not saying because you won't let them walk to the park with their friends that they are going to be drug addicts but I am hinting at that they may never have friends because they aren't allowed to do anything or when they do leave your house (if they ever get the balls to do so because the world is evil) they won't come back because they will realize that parks aren't really filled with rapists and hoodlums. What fun is it for a kid to have mom attached to their back pocket 24/7? Oh ya!! None!!

So strap a helmet on your kid but let them ride over to their friends house and don't call them every 2 minutes on the way.  Let your kid be a kid and if you have talked them through tough situations and what to do if they need help, they will be ok! We can't teach our kids life out of a book and off movies, they have to go out there experience it and live it to THEIR fullest potential.

A little fun digging:
http://kidsfightingchance.com/stats.php

Opinionated Tuesday goodnights,

Jess