Free-Range Parenting

Ultimately, the determination of whether a parenting technique has worked is whether a child grows up to be a well-adjusted adult. I also think that parenting techniques work when the parent does not suffer during the process.

Among my friends with kids and people I see online talking about their experiences with parenting, I think I've seen just about all the different parenting styles out there. Early on, my husband and I decided that we wanted to raise our daughter largely free-range. And while we won't know for another decade or so if this technique works for us, it is something that I am most comfortable with exploring for our daughter.

Essentially for a child to be free range, it doesn't mean there aren't rules--rather the reverse. Children are taught where boundaries are so that they can become independent within appropriate boundaries. The same is true for adults. We don't tend to think that we live within boundaries as adults, at least not until someone steps outside of those boundaries.

One of the boundaries is our refusal to accept our daughter's statement of "I can't do ______". Unless it is something impossible by the laws of physics, the statement of "I can't do" isn't a permitted one. Now what she can say is "It's too hard" (because for a three-year-old, there is quite a bit that is too hard either physically or mentally to handle). We only accept "It's too hard" after she's made an honest effort. A good example from this morning was her stating that she couldn't find a toy she wanted to play with that was at the bottom of her toy basket. I sat back there while she explained she couldn't get the toy, told her that she just needed to dig through the basket, and gave encouragement when she wanted to give up halfway through. In the end, she got the toy--without me doing any of the digging for her.

In our tweenage and teenage years, my husband and I did quite a bit of things free range. He flew internationally on his own (including taking himself through customs). I frequented amusement parks (Sea World, Walt Disney World) where the only chaperoning that occurred was getting me through the turnstile. I wandered around the University of Florida by myself as a young teen. I also went to Washington, DC and Chicago sans-parents. I even traveled from Florida to Alaska for two weeks to meet up with a Girl Scout trip.

Somehow, we managed to make it through our childhoods alive.

My parents were awesome about providing me the ability to have life skills as part of my growing up training. By the time I graduated from high school, not only did I have the ability to live as an adult, I also had enough career training that I could have gotten a job to support myself as needed.

Free-range parenting isn't for everyone, but I am very excited that we're bringing our daughter up that way. And we'll see how it works...in a decade or so when she's off by herself doing whatever and we're at home worrying if we made the right choice. ;)