7 ms·

I know this is presumptive but next time you take your kid to a playground, let them play on the playground with you barely in sight. Stay 200+ feet away. Watch

I know this is presumptive but next time you take your kid to a playground, let them play on the playground with you barely in sight. Stay 200+ feet away. Watch your kid play, and then wait for some other parent to intervene in your child's play. That parent will soon be looking around for you. When they can't find someone who has their eyes fixated on your child, they will ask your child where their parents are. That person is the person who will turn you in to CPS. I'm not kidding in the slightest when I say this literally happens at least once every single time I take my kid to the park. My kid is pretty advanced physically and takes parkour classes and gymnastics classes. He's very capable of handling situations that other parents freak out at. And he knows his limits probably better than those parents know their own. But they still act like they need to save my kid from himself, and you wouldn't believe the looks of disgust I get from them when I actually reveal myself. I really do not have to worry about him jumping off the monkey bars, but unfortunately I truly believe I can't let him do it on his own without a significant risk of CPS getting called.

Diederich 10y ago
Yup! We approached that iteratively, until our son was properly 'free range.' We noted cases where other adults ask our son where his parents were. He didn't know; we were watching from afar. That happened a couple of times. Beyond a couple of judgmental parents, no action was taken. One parent asked our son for his name, first and last. Our son, per instructions, refused to give his last name. At that point, the parent has a difficult decision to make. Do they call 911? The answer is 'no'. There is no emergency. I want to make it clear that I feel what you are describing. My wife and I have felt it, and we still feel it. But objectively, the risk is very low. Engineer the situation such that a 'hover-parent' has no choice but to call 911. Our son carried a cheap pre-paid cell phone from a relatively early age too. He had only to open it and push the 'send' button twice and we would be there. So even in the extremely unlikely event of cops showing up, we would be there minutes later. This thing that feels so strongly like a risk really isn't.
- ghurtado 10y ago
  > Engineer the situation such that a 'hover-parent' has no choice but to call 911. Sounds like you were using your kid as a prop in a social experiment with the goal to push your own particular agenda through "teaching moments" on strangers. What did you intend to accomplish?
  - Diederich 10y ago
    Huh, I guess you could read my account as such, but that's a pretty narrow perspective. Our primary goal was to ease all of us (our son, my wife and myself) into being comfortable with our son becoming 'free range'. Mostly it was my wife and I confirming what we suspected: that he would be safe, primarily from other over-reactive parents. We'd already objectively accepted that he would be physically safe, even though emotionally it was challenging for us. We secretly shadowed him at the park six or seven times before letting him go full solo. My account of other adult interactions with him were from those experiences. So he became fully 'free range' at the age of 9, and has been ever since, with absolutely no problems. So was it a social experiment? I guess that could be accurate, as a side effect. Were we trying to give strangers "teaching moments"? Far from it, though I suppose its possible somebody else learning something, I don't know, and don't much care. I guess you could say we were pushing our own 'particular agenda'...we were pushing it on our son and ourselves. And we are all three better off for it. I wonder if you can expand on your implication?
    - ghurtado 10y ago
      I'll freely admit that I probably misread your intent, as I half suspected. If all your goals in this situation had your kid's well being in mind, then I misunderstood you and I apologize for that. From your wording (specially the "engineer the situation" bit) it sounded to me like you behaved differently in those situations because other adults were around. The assumption I made was that you did so to teach them a lesson, so to speak. If your method towards overseeing your child is the same whether there were other adults around or not, then I obviously misunderstood you and I apologize for that. I originally understood "engineer the situation" as "provoke a misunderstanding - where none would have taken place otherwise - with the goal of making other adults uncomfortable and so they may understand their mistaken view". It seems obvious now that this was the wrong reading, but would mind explaining further what you meant by "engineering the situation"? [EDIT] I have one other question: > Our son, per instructions, refused to give his last name. May I ask why? If my son got lost, or needed to ask for help from other adults, or was caught in an emergency situation at school, I would want them to be armed with as much information as possible in order to enable an adult to contact me as soon as possible.

Diederich 10y ago

Yup! We approached that iteratively, until our son was properly 'free range.' We noted cases where other adults ask our son where his parents were. He didn't know; we were watching from afar. That happened a couple of times. Beyond a couple of judgmental parents, no action was taken. One parent asked our son for his name, first and last. Our son, per instructions, refused to give his last name. At that point, the parent has a difficult decision to make. Do they call 911? The answer is 'no'. There is no emergency. I want to make it clear that I feel what you are describing. My wife and I have felt it, and we still feel it. But objectively, the risk is very low. Engineer the situation such that a 'hover-parent' has no choice but to call 911. Our son carried a cheap pre-paid cell phone from a relatively early age too. He had only to open it and push the 'send' button twice and we would be there. So even in the extremely unlikely event of cops showing up, we would be there minutes later. This thing that feels so strongly like a risk really isn't.

ghurtado 10y ago
> Engineer the situation such that a 'hover-parent' has no choice but to call 911. Sounds like you were using your kid as a prop in a social experiment with the goal to push your own particular agenda through "teaching moments" on strangers. What did you intend to accomplish?
- Diederich 10y ago
  Huh, I guess you could read my account as such, but that's a pretty narrow perspective. Our primary goal was to ease all of us (our son, my wife and myself) into being comfortable with our son becoming 'free range'. Mostly it was my wife and I confirming what we suspected: that he would be safe, primarily from other over-reactive parents. We'd already objectively accepted that he would be physically safe, even though emotionally it was challenging for us. We secretly shadowed him at the park six or seven times before letting him go full solo. My account of other adult interactions with him were from those experiences. So he became fully 'free range' at the age of 9, and has been ever since, with absolutely no problems. So was it a social experiment? I guess that could be accurate, as a side effect. Were we trying to give strangers "teaching moments"? Far from it, though I suppose its possible somebody else learning something, I don't know, and don't much care. I guess you could say we were pushing our own 'particular agenda'...we were pushing it on our son and ourselves. And we are all three better off for it. I wonder if you can expand on your implication?
  - ghurtado 10y ago
    I'll freely admit that I probably misread your intent, as I half suspected. If all your goals in this situation had your kid's well being in mind, then I misunderstood you and I apologize for that. From your wording (specially the "engineer the situation" bit) it sounded to me like you behaved differently in those situations because other adults were around. The assumption I made was that you did so to teach them a lesson, so to speak. If your method towards overseeing your child is the same whether there were other adults around or not, then I obviously misunderstood you and I apologize for that. I originally understood "engineer the situation" as "provoke a misunderstanding - where none would have taken place otherwise - with the goal of making other adults uncomfortable and so they may understand their mistaken view". It seems obvious now that this was the wrong reading, but would mind explaining further what you meant by "engineering the situation"? [EDIT] I have one other question: > Our son, per instructions, refused to give his last name. May I ask why? If my son got lost, or needed to ask for help from other adults, or was caught in an emergency situation at school, I would want them to be armed with as much information as possible in order to enable an adult to contact me as soon as possible.