DadTalk

Take your kids to the park

Take your kids to the park.....And leave them there...Irrational fear governs the way we raise our children. It's time to set them free.

Two years ago, the Mayr family were sitting at their dinner table in suburban Colorado, when Jack, the oldest of five children, asked if he and his friend could go to the park — on their own.
"No," said his mother, Kelly, reflexively. To which her husband replied: "You're crazy. The park is just a quarter of a mile away!"
"So I actually stopped and thought about it," Kelly says, "because I never had before: My son is 10 and he's maturing and I have him stuck in my mind as a young child who couldn't possibly make decisions, couldn't deal with, I don't know, abductors. I just thought he couldn't possibly be away from my side. He never had been."

How do you get over the perception that someone is going to steal your kid? If Kelly is any example it seems you have to take the leap and witness the trade-off: a boy with a glowing summer versus a boy with a glowing screen. Outdoors versus indoors. Independent versus tethered. That, in short, is why I created a new holiday: "Take Our Children to the Park . . . and Leave Them There Day."

Last Saturday was the first "Day" and although the cover of the New York Daily News pronounced it "bizarre", CNN called it "knuckleheaded" and one radio host asked why I was serving up a "paedophile buffet", some brave parents decided to leap in.

Read the rest of this story from the Times Online