This Summer, my 15-year-old nephew flew to Australia alone, and a spent a month away from home. He had an unbelievable trip and a wonderful holiday with family over there. It was testament to my sister-in-law’s parenting that at 15-years-old, her son was confident enough to travel so far without her, and that she put her own fears and feelings aside to enable him to have a memorable adventure.Â
I looked at my ten-year-old precious first-born as my nephew prepared for his trip and thought, there is no way I can envisage a situation in five years time where I would drop her off at the airport and say see, “you in a month.” It made me think more about our parenting and how I need to up my game in the free range parenting skills department.
Free-range parenting is the concept of raising children in the spirit of encouraging them to function independently in proper accordance of their age of development with a reasonable acceptance of realistic personal risks.
Wikipedia- Free Range Parenting
Free range parenting isn’t new. The term is, but it’s how most of us were raised, and all the generations before us too. There was a shift somewhere along the line, and the world seems to be perceived as a more dangerous place now.
I don’t know if this perception is always justified. There is more traffic on the roads, but I don’t think there are any more weirdos around now than then were in the past. Maybe due to 24-hour news and social media we just hear about it more. It is very easy to be terrified after reading about attempted abductions of children online – wanting to wrap them in cotton wool forever. But on the other end of the scale, there are stories online about parents contacting their college-going children’s lecturers about problems their kids are having instead of the adult children sorting our their own problems.
I allow and encourage my children to have some freedom and independence, they walk to the small local shop and play outside unsupervised. I have let my eight and ten-year-old walk home from school, only home, though, never to school because if they were abducted they would be out of the country before I realised they were missing.
I teach them about road safety; then I picture speeding cars. I have an overactive imagination, but IÂ try to let common sense win out over my over active imagination.
I want my children to be able to negotiate their own world; I can’t do it forever.
I have loads of them (well, okay, I have four, but some days it feels like a lot more) and I have plans to hit the beach in Goa when they are adults and act inappropriately for my age. I don’t have plans to contact any college lecturers.
So prompted by the jet-setting nephew, I knew it was time it was to up the stakes in the raising self-reliant children. One problem was, I have a six-year-old who thinks she is as mature and independent as her ten-year-old sister. The second problem was, I didn’t plan the next new thing they could do alone.
And so I found myself in a very hot shopping centre at the height of Summer on a Saturday afternoon with my ten and six-year-old daughters, they wanted to go to Penneys . I said okay, handed them a fiver each, and told them I would meet them at the carpark door in 15 minutes. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I began second-guessing my decision, but the look of excitement on their faces…. So off they went. I stood on the floor above the shop entrance with my eyes on the door and waited. And waited. And waited.
15 minutes passed. Then 20. It was very hot. I drank a bottle of water and tried to discreetly wipe the pouring sweat from my head. The security guard passed me several times. Me, the sweating woman, pacing with her eyes trained on the entrance to Penneys.
At the 25 minute mark, I battled hard not to run down the stairs into the shop screaming their names. After 30 minutes, I considered asking the security guard who was now almost circling me, and who could blame him, did the Shopping Centre have a lock down policy if a child goes missing?
Around this stage, the bottle of water I had gulped back meant I needed to pee. I couldn’t leave my lookout post. I cursed myself for not giving my children phones or implanting them with tracking devices and crossed my legs.
After 40 minutes, I text the husband to apologise for willingly putting two of our children into this situation, and listed out all the potentially dangerous situations our children were now in. The husband went from reassuring me to ignoring me to starting to worry himself.
At the 50 minute mark, I was still at my watch point, sweating, legs crossed, people walking past me were looking alarmed by my presence, the security guard had probably called for back up, when finally, my daughters arrived up the stairs clutching a Penneys bag, wild-eyed, flushed with big hair and looking exhausted. I recognised the look, anyone who has spent a long amount of time in Penney’s on a Saturday afternoon has the same frenzied appearance.
I don’t know what I was thinking. I can’t get in and out of a Penneys in 15 minutes, and I have over 30 years experience. How could I possibly expect two girls with a small taste of freedom and two grubby fivers in hand, to achieve it? I could tell immediately the smaller girl had been upset. I asked was all okay. The tales spilled out…. decisions, adding up of totals, the stationery, the cap, the very reasonably priced pyjamas or a new notebook. Tales as old as time for an experienced Penneys shopper like myself. It took 40 minutes for them to choose and queue, and right when they got to the top of the very long queue, disaster struck and the smaller girl had lost her fiver.
What did you do, I asked. “I gave her my fiver so she wouldn’t be disappointed and  I didn’t get my things,” says the ten-year old. A tear may have slipped down my cheek at this stage. Emotions were high, and I still hadn’t been able to leave my watch post in search of a bathroom. All thoughts of abductions and terrorists left my head, and I handed her another fiver to go back and get her things.
Never quit on a bad day and all that.
She was back beaming with pride five minutes later, neon items in-hand that I would have bought her, hair stuck to her heads with sweat, weary and proud and all in need of a lie-down. Mission accomplished and lesson learned, it’s impossible to get in and of Penneys quickly when there is so much choice. And when things go wrong, there is always someone to help.
The handing over of her own fiver to her younger sister saved the smaller girls day and showed me that really, I have nothing to worry about with my eldest, she is growing up just fine. She might not be ready for International travel alone yet, but public transport locally is next on the list, and she will manage it. And if I learn some mindfulness skills or something and I will manage too.
