Barbara Kay: Send your kid to school by himself

Taking age-appropriate risks in childhood allows children to develop greater confidence as adults.

I have no childhood recollection of being escorted by a parent to or from the public school that was a short walk from our Toronto home. I only remember walking with my sister, with other kids, or alone. From the age of seven, my own children also walked the short distance to school in our safe Montreal neighbourhood by themselves.

My oldest grandchild will be 10 in a few weeks, and her Toronto school is literally around the corner from home in her equally safe neighbourhood. But a parent takes her and her younger sister to school every day. An adult retrieves them for lunch, walks them back afterward and then picks them up after school, even if it means disturbing the baby’s nap. The very idea of my son’s prudent oldest daughter taking public transportation on her own — which he did at her age — would never even arise as a possibility. The same for my nine-year old Montreal granddaughter, who is escorted to and from her school two blocks away along a route so public and well-trafficked that abduction is inconceivable.

It’s been dubbed “helicopter parenting,” “duct-tape parenting” and simply “over-protective parenting,” but whatever you call it, it’s the new normal in raising children. In a much-discussed article in this month’s Atlantic Monthly, entitled “Hey Parents, Leave those Kids Alone,” author Hanna Rosin admits that her own daughter, at the age of 10, has never spent 10 minutes of her life unsupervised by an adult. Well, neither has a single one of my five granddaughters, and that concerns me (please don’t tell my children; I lead them to believe I never disapprove of anything they do as parents).

Rosin cites the work of early childhood educator Ellen Sandseter, who has made a specialty of children and risk. Sandseter’s research led her to conclude that children have an inherent need to test themselves by experiencing risk and — though not danger itself — a feeling of confronting danger. She says there are six basic kinds of risk children must learn to manage: heights; handling dangerous tools (scissors, hammers); playing near water and fire; mock fighting (learning to handle aggression); speed; and “exploring on one’s own.”

The last, parents’ greatest fear, is the “most important for the children,” according to Sandseter, who told Rosin, “When [children] are left alone and can take full responsibility for their actions, and the consequences of their decisions, it’s a thrilling experience.” So true. When I was young, my block friends and I were outside all day, or so it seemed, certainly many hours at a time, when we explored the Toronto ravine near our house, wandered amongst our friends’ backyards or simply hung out at the school playground. And it was indeed exciting.I

f you believe those were more innocent times, you’d be wrong. Stranger abduction rates were extremely low then, and they still are. My children’s fears are irrational, and they know they are, but no parent wants even to appear negligent according to the norms of their generation. According to one UK study cited by Rosin, 80% of third-graders walked to school alone in 1971. But by 1990 only 9% did, and today the percentage is lower still.

I understand their conformity and sympathize. I am sure I would be a duct-tape parent today, too.

Sandseter links milestones in independence that my generation took for granted — running errands, climbing trees unsupervised, exploring unfamiliar terrain — with development of critical thinking skills

But conformity to practices that run counter to children’s psychological needs can have consequences. There is a natural temporal window in which children learn to manage their inner fears by making decisions that combine the pleasure in taking a small risk with prudent self-protection. Call it a form of literacy: Just as hand-eye coordination, a form of physical literacy, must be learned by a specific age or it never comes naturally, taking age-appropriate risks in childhood confers greater adult confidence than a no-risk childhood.

Sandseter even links milestones in independence that my generation took for granted — running errands in local shops, super-speedy slides, climbing trees unsupervised, exploring unfamiliar terrain — with development of critical thinking skills, and lack of childhood risk-taking to diminished intellectual independence.

There’s a reason all the classic children’s stories of yesteryear — Heidi, Pollyanna, Anne of Green Gables, the wildly popular “Famous Five” series by Enid Blyton and the Arthur Ransome “Swallows and Amazons” series, not to mention Harry Potter — feature orphans or children far from their natural protectors, children who negotiate the world with courage and resourcefulness. They have lessons to teach that children are eager to learn and apply — and could, if only adults would get out of their way for an hour here and there.