What was the story with the neighbour? There is much more to this story.
Agree with your basic premise, but just keep in mind that we live in a dangerous world.
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Tammy Cooper, the mother of two children ages 6 and 9, was charged with child endangerment and jailed when she let her children ride their scooters in front of her house on a quiet cul-de-sac in La Porte Texas. A neighbour called the police, who supposedly checked with a prosecutor before making an arrest to ensure criminal charges could be laid. Obviously, there is a serious problem here…When we put people in jail for such inconsequential acts, when we abuse the power of the police, and of course, when we completely misunderstood children’s developmental needs.
Let’s be clear: children need to ride their scooters on the street, where there are cars, if they are going to grow up and be good problem-solvers capable of making decisions for themselves with the common-sense necessary to cope with life’s messes. In my book Too Safe for Their Own Good I argue that we are much too focused on keeping our children safe and far less focused on providing them with the developmental building blocks they need for a lifetime of resilience. Rather than protection, our children need the “risk-taker’s advantage.” That’s the skills our children develop when they are given manageable amounts of risk and responsibility.
That means playing on the road when it is reasonably safe to do so. That is how they figure out on their own how to behave to keep themselves out of harms way. A car is coming down the road…pull to the side and wait until it passes. Do a shoulder check before veering from the curb. Before you try any tricks, consider how hard the pavement will be when you hit it. How exactly are children in La Porte Texas, or anywhere else for that matter, going to learn to survive in traffic if they don’t slowly have opportunities to create the psychological scaffolding they need to understand the consequences to their actions. Survival skills are not something a parent tells a child. They are something a parent coaches a child to learn through lived experience.
There are other remarkable elements to this story. All over the world, when I study what makes children resilient, I see a pattern. For example, older children being given some responsibility for younger children. A nine-year-old should have been able to coach a six-year-old on how to scooter safely. Not that it was necessary. According to media reports, Ms. Cooper was reportedly outside watching her children, which was already more supervision than might have been necessary given the real level of risk present in that quiet, traffic calmed suburb.
In psychological terms, we’ve known for a century that children who are pushed slightly beyond their comfort zone and given opportunities to fail in ways that won’t have long-term consequences, are children who do much better in life. But, as their caregivers, we need to give children opportunities to encounter danger and learn the rules for survival. A child who has never rode a scooter on a quiet street is a child ill-prepared for driving a car, much less walking to school and crossing a busy intersection. The risk-takers advantage is something we are psychologically and biologically driven to experience for ourselves. Far better to take risks when the danger is small and we are supervised than when we are older and unsupervised.
Let the children play, even if that is on the road when that road is reasonably safe.
What was the story with the neighbour? There is much more to this story.
Agree with your basic premise, but just keep in mind that we live in a dangerous world.
when you say "keep in mind we live in a dangerous world" it is worth keeping in mind the world has always been 'dangerous' and many of us now live in a part and time of the world significantly less dangerous than anywhere else in the world or in history. In fact, the author's basic premise is predicated on understanding that the world has danger - this is why children need to be exposed to some of it gradually, to learn how to negotiate it. To hope or plan to keep children shielded from danger is beyond flawed, it sets them up to be incapable of identifying significant dangers in the future.
and, I forgot to add, the neighbour who called is not the issue - crazy neighbours calling the cops for all sorts of nonsense has got to more than common. the problem is what the Police did when they received the call and when they got to the 'scene of the crime'!
Yes, I'll bet there is much more to this story. The story with the neighbour might include annoyance with the sounds of children playing. Or perhaps there is a wondering pet problem. Or maybe a loud music issue. Physical or mental illness might figure in to the picture. Whatever the neighbour's story is, I find it sad that the police and the prosecutor didn't respond to the complaint in a conciliatory manner.
The mother was right there guarding her children's safety. It seems that the greatest danger in that cul-de-sac was the neighbour's hostile attitude.
Two girls just got ran over by an SUV because their clueless father let them hide in a pile of leaves by the curb right in the street (I've seen the crime photos).
A better phrase to use might be "Learn to negotiate traffic" or "ride in the street" instead of "play." Kids don't need to play in the street.
It's a public street not a play ground. I come home exhausted from work and traffic and want peace and quiet. Instead I have to listen to the screeching, crying, screaming kids with their toy trucks in front of my window. Call me crazy and miserable. I didn't move next to a park. The parents are inconsiderate of their neighbors. She doesnt have to work the next day. All she does is take care of her brats. It makes me sick and I am calling the police and complaint they are blocking a public street.
So the 5 year old child "watching" his 2 year old brother as they rode their big wheels in the middle of the street is a good idea? That's what I just witnessed. There was no adult supervision. A car nearly hit the toddler. This is a street that some like to race on. The family home has a large driveway and a long sidewalk that the kids could be playing on. This is neglect, not survival training.
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