Parents: No Hovering Around Your Kids

A risk-free childhood is a childhood at risk

According to an April, 2009 report from SANDAG (San Diego Association of Governments)/ARJIS (Automated Regional Justice Information System), crime statistics demonstrate that our city is “one of the safest places to live, compared to other large metropolitan areas in terms of violent crime — fourth lowest.” We are told that last year’s crime statistics show that both the violent and property crime rates for the San Diego region decreased and were at 25-year lows.

So does that mean you let your children ride a bike to the library? Or walk alone to school? Or do you think every time your let your children play outside they need a private security guard watching over them? Seems the expectation of zero danger has become the norm. Perhaps a greater danger is trying to raise a child who never encounters choice or independence. For some, walking to school alone is akin to walking through a firing range, because any risk is too much risk. Try and create a risk-free childhood and it will be childhood that is at risk.

Statistics show that rates of child abduction and sexual abuse have marched steadily downward since the early 1990s, yet fear of these crimes is at an all-time high. L.J. Williamson noted in the LA Times, “Even the panic-inducing Megan's Law Web site says stranger abduction is rare and that 90 percent of child sexual-abuse cases are committed by someone known to the child. Yet we still suffer a crucial disconnect between perception of crime and its statistical reality.”

The rates of Type II diabetes, hypertension and obesity are on the rise, while child abduction and abuse are on the decrease. Which scenario should provoke more panic: the possibility that your child may become one of the approximately 100 children kidnapped by strangers each year, or one of the country's 58 million overweight adults?”

This blog came to me in, of all places, a therapy session with a divorced couple. She was going on and on about how her ex-husband kept their 9-year-old daughter’s cell phone from her as a punishment.

“How can I possibly get in touch with her when I need her?” mom shrieked. I thought to myself, how did my mother get in touch with me when I was 9 years old? Then I realized all she did was open the window and yell my name for all the neighborhood to hear. I heard too. Then I realized as long as I was home before the street lights went on, all was fine. That was in Newark, New Jersey. Yep, that “dangerous” city, Newark. Hmmm, maybe it was no more dangerous than San Diego is today. Fear mongering and parental hovering need to be reined in because children are not Fabergé eggs. They want to learn, explore, experience and experiment just as we did. Sure, we want our children to be safe, but if we try to prevent every possible danger or difficulty in our children’s lives, our kids never get the chance to grow. The ultimate goal of parenting is independence, and independence is best fostered by handing it out a little at a time.

One parent I spoke with about this blog told me that both of her children experienced broken bones (from monkey bars and playing touch football), and “they recovered and learned something.” Another psychiatrist friend of mine told me that when he told his son to put on shoes before he went outside, his son did not listen. So, when his son came running into the home with a bloody foot, the doctor thought the boy “learned something.” He didn’t. He cut another foot a week later. He is a runner today.

Kids are not growing up faster today than they did in the past. They are far more controlled. By encountering risks, children learn to overcome challenging situations. Prevent all germs from ever touching your children and they have little immunity later in life. Remember John Travolta’s son, Jett? Ask John if he regrets being a germophobe. George Carlin reminded us that grownups have taken the fun out of being kids. “You gotta let ’em go,” Carlin said. “You gotta cut ’em loose; you gotta stop overprotecting them, because you’re making ’em too soft.”

Someone sent me an e-mail that reminded me that as a child, I drank water from a garden hose, not a non-BPA bottle of Smartwater. I shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and nobody died from this. I ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and, yes, bacon. I drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. You know why I wasn’t overweight? Because I always played outside. No Playstation, Wii, X-box or iPod. No video games, 200 channels on cable, DVDs, cell phones, iChat, IMing or text messaging.

Get this: I had friends. Real live people to play with in the dirt, with worms, that didn’t live in us forever. I rode my bike wearing a Yankees baseball hat, not a helmet, rode in my dad’s Buick with no car seat, seat belt or air bags. I think my crib was even painted with lead paint.

Somehow I survived with the freedom, successes, failures and responsibilities I had and, as we all did, I learned to deal with it all.

Carlin: “Little League, Cub Scouts, swimming, soccer, karate, piano, bagpipes, watercolors, witchcraft, glass blowing….It's absurd. They even have ‘play dates!’ Playing is now done by appointment! But it's true. A lot of these striving parents are burning their kids out on structure. I think what every child needs and ought to have every day is two hours of daydreaming. Plain old daydreaming.” I agree.

We live in a great city, a safe city, with lots of remarkable things for kids to do and places for them to roam. Let’s allow our children to enjoy the riches of living in San Diego — safely, but not “smotheringly” so.

Answer yes to these questions and you are hovering too much:

• Do you continually anticipate a negative consequence to any action your child takes — and make sure you warn them about it then prevent it from happening?
• Do you tell your child what he feels, likes, wants?
• Do you answer questions for your child, or speak for him?
• Do you rush to pick your child up when he falls?
• Do you find it hard to let your child make his own mistakes?

It’s time to worry less, enjoy imperfection, focus on what matters most and raise happier kids. Be a good-enough mom instead of a super-mom. Of course we want our kids to enjoy their childhood years in safety. But we need to be sane about our oversight without being reckless. Try this when you fear mountain lions will suddenly eat your kids: “It could happen ... but it probably won’t.”

For more than 30 years, Dr. Mantell has successfully been bringing upbeat, friendly and helpful psychological insights to individuals, families and businesses in San Diego as a clinical and corporate psychologist in private practice. He's been a regular on Good Morning America, KFMB-TV News 8, has appeared on Oprah, Larry King Live, the Today show, authored two best-selling books and speaks regularly for audiences throughout the country.

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