Are you "Anxious Parents"?

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-30-2006
Are you "Anxious Parents"?
1765
Wed, 11-15-2006 - 8:24am

Today's MSN News features this article

Sabina

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-27-2005
Sat, 11-18-2006 - 10:51am
I guess it is good to be a little naive. I personally don't think the world is the same as it was when we were kids. You don't just let you kids run around like we used to. I know there were dangers and evils then, it is much different now. I am letting my children have their freedom as being kids but I am also cautious on who they play with and where they go. My children are very young now, 8 and 3 so they really don't have much places to go themselves yet. Their father and I have been teaching them and we continue to do so as they get older so they will not fear everything (which we don't but we are a little more cautious than many parents we see) but be cautious in their life with people they meet.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 11-18-2006 - 10:54am

Yes, I agree. It is not a matter of treating them like adults at all, it is a matter of treating them like competent, responsible kids. I remember cracking up completely one time I visited my mother in Copenhagen. I was going to the corner store for something when I saw this little kid coming out of the store. He was probably 5, barely. Since I had just flown in from the US, I was at first concerned, thinking the kid was lost. But he looked perfectly happy and content, and had obviously gone to buy candy there. Just outside the store he bumped into another little boy about the same age. The two little guys greeted each other very nicely, one asked the other what candy he got, they had a little chat and parted with a "see ya!"

The local playground next to my mom's house opens on to the pier of the harbor and the pier is unfenced. The kids know not to jump in the water, what can I say? I have never heard it mentioned as a problem or concern and even 3yos routinely go to the playground by themselves.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-27-2005
Sat, 11-18-2006 - 10:56am
Really? I guess you have never been to the cheerleading practice, the nail salon, the mall, the dance studio. These girls are treated like adults at young ages. Parents are pushing their children to grow up faster than they should.
How are they being babied when the majority of the posters here let their kids go to the busstop alone, ride 4 miles alone?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 11-18-2006 - 11:00am
I guess we simply disagree. I do not see the world as very different from the one in which I grew up. Also, I am not as afraid as you are. Perhaps I am the naive one, but I have faith in myself, my parenting and most of all my kid. We know all kinds of people, as does my dd. I hope I have taught her well enough so that she can handle herself among different kinds of people in a polite and careful fashion.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-27-2005
Sat, 11-18-2006 - 11:01am
8-10 and 13-14 are 2 big leaps. I would let my 13-14 do alot more and be a little less supervised than an 8-10 year old.
If you treat your child like an adult, and I don't mean just going places with their friends, then they will want to do adult things. Having to get their eyebrows waxed and manicures and pedicures all the time like an adult at 10 is just going to make them want to do more.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 11-18-2006 - 11:05am

No, that is not how things were 30 years ago. That is how things were for you and your friends. We were not spanked, nor given time-outs. My parents were not spanked either. Well, my grandmother tried to whip my dad and his brother with a special switch purchased for the purpose, but they found it and broke it, so that was the end of spanking for them.

In any event, what is so great about fearing your parents, and how does keeping your kids locked up in the backyard and not letting them out of your sight relate to their fear of you?

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-27-2005
Sat, 11-18-2006 - 11:07am
I have to tell you, I live in a very nice town, the houses are more expensive than many areas around. We had a shooting just about a month ago. You would NEVER think that would happen around here but it did. They were just young kids, 18 years old. Very sad.
I feel if it happened here, it can happen anywhere.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-27-2005
Sat, 11-18-2006 - 11:09am
I have to agree. I live in the same house and we NOW have a pedifile living by us. We never had that before.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-27-2005
Sat, 11-18-2006 - 11:11am
Not in all neighborhoods. We knew everyone who lived within a mile or so either way by our home, the same place I live now. There was NO danger of any pedifile at that time. The pedifile now that lives by us is the same family that has lived there but has married into the family.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 11-18-2006 - 11:15am

OK, I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. What do manicures have to do with anything and why would a 10yo be getting manicures?

Nor do I know what you mean by "adult" things and wanting to do "more." The period from roughly age 10 to roughly age 16-17 is a long, slow period of intensive growth in all kind of ways, physical, emotional, intellectual, culminating hopefully in an adult person or something very close to an adult person. IOW, by age 18 or even before, we expect the person to work, have a bank account, a credit card maybe (common for college kids to get one for emergencies, for example), drive a car, manage his own daily life, whether in a dorm or an apartment etc. IOW, we expect the person to manage most things that an adult would have to manage. The 14yo or even the 10yo is supposed to "want" more, because growing up and learning all these new responsibilities is hard work as well as a little scary, so without some strong motivation to want "more" they would all want to remain babies.

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