OK, OK, not abandon them per se. (Jeez, Jane, way to write a provocative and misleading headline just to get people to read the post.) But at what age is it appropriate for them to leave the confines of your house or backyard unsupervised? Seven? Nine? Fourteen?
As the fabulous Madeline Holler wrote about on Strollerderby and as my fellow Babble Voices blogger Stefanie-Wilder Taylor discussed/debated last night on the Dr. Drew show, last Saturday was national “Take Our Children to the Park…And Leave Them There” Day, as declared by Lenore Skenazy, author of Free Range Kids.
Skenazy suggested that parents drop their kids aged 7 or older off at a local park and let them play with other kids, unsupervised, for a while, arguing that experiences like this are important for kids — to foster their independence and to let them create the kind of fond childhood memories many of us have of being on our own. No planned activities, no hovering parents.
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