Growing up

[Parts]

I think I had a thread like this before but so many new people are here and I have been thinking about this a lot again.   How much freedom where you given as a child and how much should they be given?

I had more than most even for the time I was growing up due mostly to sisters who slacked at watching me.  I went pretty much where I wanted from about age 5 with little or no supervision this was in the suburbs and I lived next to a large school complex with a playground and woods.
I will be the first to say I had too little but today it seems kids all the way up to young teens are watched like hawks which I find disturbing.

Thoughts? 

['andersom']

Mainly agreeing with you.

May elaborate later.

[Icequeen]

It was the same for me, although I grew up in the middle of nowhere so there wasn't a whole lot I could get into.

Ex and his family are the opposite, and he thinks going through his stuff/phone should be the norm, and is always checking up on the kid. Needless to say this has been an area where we butt heads ALOT.

Also...I just love the mother's who give you a list of instructions when they bring there kid over (normally with no notice to you )... little Johnny isn't allowed more than 3 cookies, no TV...and he isn't allowed to play any "violent" games and is limited to an hour of game play...yadda yadda yadda.

Met a couple of those already ...ends up that little Johnny is normally not allowed to visit again. 

 

[Jesse]

I'd rather not talk about my childhood. it was awful, Now however I'm pretty much as free as one can be.
My sister does use us sometimes as a babysitter on sundays and mondays wich kind of pisses me off, because watching kids is hard work. there always getting into shit, and one of them is still in diapers. But its cool, I love my nieces so its not too bad

I just hope this 10 months goes by fast.

["couldbecousin"]

  I was hardly allowed to go anywhere alone for most of my childhood.
  When I was 11 I actually went alone to a classmate's house at the bottom of my street.
  I felt very adventurous!    I didn't have many life skills when I left home at 22.

[Natalia Evans]

I remember playing outside by myself when I was four and riding my bike around the neighborhood on my own when I was six. Kids young as five were going over to their friends houses on their own. I remember playing outside and it be getting dark out. It be summer time or Spring. I was even walking to the bus stop on my own at age 8 and my brothers went there on their own in kindergarten. But mom still checked up on us kids and she leave a window open so she hear us. But there was lot of kids on our block who were always unsupervised and their parents never watched them. My mom even got criticism about her parenting because she was sitting on the side walk in a beach chair reading a book as my brothers were playing in the front yard with their friend who was only five. The mother never came out to check on him and my mom didn't feel comfortable having her young kids be out in the front yard by themselves with no adult supervision. My brothers were like 2 and 3 then. Parents are frowned upon when they leave their young children in the front yard by themselves and then others are frowned upon when they are actually doing their job as a parent. Maybe the mother was free range and not a helicopter parent but you can't expect a five year old to be responsible for two other small children and that was what my mother had an issue with. But when they were older, she stopped watching them like that.

But when I lived in Montana, it was not uncommon to see kids young as seven walking around town by themselves. They even went to the movies on their own. We had a movie theater and it was one theater inside. They would even go to the video store themselves and rent their own movies. But my brothers, our parents always had to take them because we lived out in the country but when they were in middle school, they would ride their bikes to town with their friends. It was a long journey on your feet and bike wheels. Small towns are so different than cities.

Also when I was 13, I would be left at the bookstore by myself or at the mall and I could wander off in the store all I want and not have mom getting mad at me for taking off. When I was 11, I could also in a store but I was never left alone in a store by myself but when they be there also, I could wander off without getting scolded and mom telling me how someone could take me or touch me wrong.

[bodie]

I had two older brothers more than five years older than me

-  yeah i was watched like a hawk.

I was a bit of a loner as a child so i never really wanted to go play with anyone.  I was busy.  I used to collect 'things' or write poems.  I also used to make a caterpillar den in the back garden.  Caterpillars were good company. 

Yeah my back garden was my main playground.  It was fenced, and gated and secure and no one had to be out there watching me.  Perfect.

[Queen Victoria]

Writing from the perspective of 1955 or so:

We were pretty much free to roam on our block.  However, most of the kids lived in the middle of the block, so there wasn't too much reason to visit the ends.  Even bicycling was limited to the street, although we did sneak down 3 or 4 blocks on occasion.  Front and back yards were fair territory.  Climbing the chain link fence to explore the ditch wasn't forbidden, but neither was it allowed.  Probably a "wink, wink" thing.  Moms just yelled for us to come home, or made a few phone calls when we weren't in sight. 

From age 6 or so, I was allowed to wander stores, in retrospect making it hellish for my parents to find us in a multi-level department store.

The PR wasn't allowed to roam stores until she was about 13 or so.  Then it was stores she was familiar with.  She has always been free to play front or back yard freely.  There has rarely been children her age on our block, so she stayed in our yard, or the neighbor's yard by her "crying tree." 

[Parts]

I rode my bike to the beach which was about 3 miles away when I was 9 and went swimming and once I moved to Florida when I was 11 I did that on a regular basis it was 3 or 4 miles when I lived there.  The Summer I turned 11 my brother gave me a ton of fireworks which my mom took immediately and then set out a limited number each day so I would not use them up too quickly

[renaeden]

Me and my twin sister were watched by our older sisters until we were about ten. That was when our family split up and me and my twin were separated. Then my sister went off to stay at a farm-like place for work and I was left much to my own devices after school because my mum and stepdad worked. I tried to stay away from my stepdad because he thought I was weird (well, I was).

I remember riding around on my bike a lot, all around the neighbourhood. As long as I was home by dinner time, there was no limit to where I could go. Once I rode to the city and back just for fun. I didn't get pocket money but I did get some money given to me every now and then for when I was going out to a movie or something and I would save the change.

When I was 16 and eligible for Austudy (for people whose parents don't earn very much - it is to help with expenses for school) that really changed my independence. I was hardly ever home and paid for all my own things including school fees and books.

I admit, I have regressed in the past few years. At the moment my parents have control of my finances and I have to ask for money when I need it.

[Zippo]

i have been a spoiled kid... [i say that in the sense that i am still a kid intentionally. as i am still young and not mature. maybe not a boy but i am a kid] but as far as freedoms go i have not many.... a lot of the things i want i cant do simply because of my living arangement. examples [of things i can not do, not necisaraly that i want] is smoke, drink [i wouldnt mind a scotch of shot of vodka now and again] or own firearms. not even a bow. simply because i live in a foster home. [or so my foster parents told me. just googled it and it seems they may be lying.]

either way. they would probably not allow it if i proved them otherwise.

at school because of my aspergers they had an EA with me at all times [educational assistant] meaning i was often shunned and could not really socialise with anyone but the other special needs kids [who were all well below my level of functioning] so friends were allways a problem at school for more reasons than just the aspergers. i was never really allowed a ton of freedom. i allways had to be home before late if i was at a friends and i could never really go out and dick around at night- not even when i was a teen [though i have done it once or twice]

before foster care i was really not allowed that either but was younger so does not really matter to much. 

[Parts]

My kids were allowed to walk to the corner store which is about a half mile away when they were nine as long as they told us before they left and when they got back. They also had the run of our street at 6 within reason.

['andersom']

Somehow, I can't remember limits of where not to go from age 6 on. I wasn't that much of an adventurer, my brother was. He had my parents scared shitless now and then, by his actions. (going on 25km tours, ending up at relatives, without telling.....) But, it always ended well. Together with my brother, I could get lost in time and adventure too. Most funny time is that somehow we never made it to school after lunch. He was 4, I was 5, and there was way to much to be seen and explored on our way to school.
At age nine, I roller-skated to the next village and back, why not. I was a lot in the woods not too far from my house. Or, I was reading in my room.
Times were different then, less traffic, less people, and, people not that scared to take care of each other. (OK, that came hand in hand with strong social control, so, it is not all roses). At age 11, a classmate and I got harassed by a hormonal guy, while walking in the woods at a fox hunting BD game.  It bugged us, but it did not take away our sense of safety, when alone in the woods.

I've given my kids the freedom they wanted, if they showed they were capable to handle it. So, they came home from school alone at age 6, and, bit after that were allowed to play with friends at all playgrounds on this side of the village. Not allowed to cross the main street, with lots of traffic, and, not allowed to go to the water, cars race around there, and, the water is cold and deep, for a small kid, even when it can swim. And yes, my kids could both swim well and safe at age 7. To me, and most parents I know of, that is a necessity, before you can have kids outside on their own, in the vicinity of water. And, if they went to or with someone, I wanted to know.
This is a small village. Most kids here have freedoms like my kids had, because it is possible. In a big, crowded city, it would be different.