Parent’s Corner: Where Free-Range kids goes awry - one year old falls in a pond \ stacker news ~alter

Parent’s Corner: Where Free-Range kids goes awry - one year old falls in a pond

594 sats \ 18 comments \ @realBitcoinDog 12 Nov alter_native

So @Undisciplined made this post #764710 to share this video https://odysee.com/@johnstossel:7/free-range-parenting-a-mom%E2%80%99s-guide-to:a?r=8T2xqWjtafHWYGxQBSsrbw1wQPm7sWRq

TLDR: We don’t give kids unsupervised play anymore, and it’s so bad there’s body cam footage of a police officer arresting a Texas mother for letting her 8-year-old son walk by himself home from school.

So anyways of course all else equal I agree that you gotta give capable kids space to grow their independence.

I also listen to the Stroller-Coaster parenting podcast and halfway through a Tennessee mother shares her story

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strollercoaster-a-parenting-podcast/id1562176221?i=1000676495279

She has a pumpkin farm and a parked tractor 🚜 hooked to a flat trailer bed with a bunch of tiny decorative style pumpkins on it. It’s parked next to a fish pond.

She’s of course watching her kids. A four year old daughter and one year old son. They’re jumping up and down on the trailer, and she’s loading pumpkins in the trailer. She’s being careful to not trip on the fish pond.

It’s the parenting challenge. Watching kids and letting em play, but also getting things done.

Anyways her mind wanders and she checks her phone thinking about her sister in Florida and the hurricane coming because she worried. Looks like her sister should be safe. But then she flips to instagram and she’s scrolling a few minutes. Then she hears her daughter let out a blood curdling SCREAM!

She looks up from her phone to see her daughter pulling her baby brother out of the pond feet first with his head still underwater.

She gets him out and after a couple coughs he’s ok. They’re all ok. She shares on the podcast her lesson is when you’re watching your kids turn off your cellphone you can NOT let yourself get distracted by social media.

But I’m listening and I’m thinking of @Undisciplined and I’m like, what isn’t this a success story of free-range kids, kinda? Obviously they are too young to be playing in a dangerous situation unsupervised, but the daughter was a hero! So brave to cry for help and actually try to pull her brother out from the water.

TLDR: I’m grateful for ~alter_native @DesertDave and @grayruby suggesting I write in Parents corner because being a parent is tough and I’m grateful for the support and sharing resources 🫡

Love, Shameless Uptail Woof Woof 🐕

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64 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan 12 Nov

...like today.

Congrats America https://reason.com/2024/11/11/mom-jailed-for-letting-10-year-old-walk-alone-to-town/

12 sats \ 0 replies \ @realBitcoinDog OP 12 Nov

Wow!

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 12 Nov

Toddlers around water - yeah that's a disaster waiting to happen.

I'm completely pro free-range and think that kids in the US are often crippled by their parents helicopter parenting. However, you do need to watch out with bodies of water.

Here's a excerpt from a pioneer era biography, about a local pond:

During the hot months it was a favorite gathering place. Father saw to it that we learned to swim soon after we could walk, for that open pond was a real hazard. Some told the story that he threw each child in on its second birthday, and forced him to swim or drown. That, of course, was not true, but we could all swim well when we were quite young.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @realBitcoinDog OP 13 Nov

Ha! Yea sink or swim doesn’t work but point well taken!

21 sats \ 4 replies \ @User21000000 12 Nov

My son got bitten by a lizard on the weekend wondering around a river near where our new house is getting built was hilarious

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @realBitcoinDog OP 12 Nov

I demand pics of the lizard 🦎

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @User21000000 13 Nov

Literally like that one you posted but about 30cm long

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @realBitcoinDog OP 13 Nov

Huge!!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @User21000000 13 Nov

Yeah and it gripped on his shirt as well so he couldn’t shake it off

32 sats \ 2 replies \ @grayruby 12 Nov

Nice story. Most of my kids mishaps have been due to my influence and trying to allow them to be independent haha. My daughter fell off a swing when she was 2 (my fault), I almost lost my son in the pacific ocean tide when he was 4 (my fault). I might be exaggerating a bit about the second one. He did start to drift but never got more than a few feet from me before I snatched him. Story is better and more harrowing this way though.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @realBitcoinDog OP 12 Nov

The ocean is a cruel mistress!! You saved his life!

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 12 Nov

Haha yeah let's go with that.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @denlillaapan 12 Nov

Lenore Skenazy writes some unbelievable things about American insanity/overbearing kids.

Where I live, kids play unsupervised all day long -- go bike/walk with friends in the village until late at night (at least during bright summer nights) or travel on busses or airplanes on their own.

Americans are idiots about overbearing parenting

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @realBitcoinDog OP 12 Nov

deleted by author

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan 12 Nov

eh, don't dox my location, bitch. Not a state secret but not exactly something I massively advertise either.

My guy here was pretty good, hat-tip but no reveal https://primal.net/e/note1nfgq9uv4qds35fcvjhv8cw8rlvh7jx2tvk3ayv6s6ccj4dpak3cs8h7q68

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @realBitcoinDog OP 12 Nov

My bad! I deleted.

32 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 12 Nov

I agree that this is a point in the free-range column, but I also do have older kids in mind.

For instance, our daughter plays by herself in our fenced in back yard, but not in the front yard which has street access. However, she's demonstrating enough caution around the street that I don't keep a very close eye on her while I'm doing yardwork there.

13 sats \ 0 replies \ @realBitcoinDog OP 12 Nov

This makes sense to me!