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I used to play outside, in the street, until the night comes...
My older brother walked to school alone since he was 10, I walked to school alone since I was 12, my younger brother walked to school alone since he was 15 and my little sister is 6 now... I wonder: will she ever walk to school alone?

lol...
Years ago, children were healthyer.

I pretty much agree with Luna. Too much overparenting going on these days. 90% of the teenagers and young adults raised by the babyboomer generation in America don't even have basic common sense or real world problem solving skills. I've read that some high end jobs have even noticed this trend and made a section wanting a description of the applicants play habits as a child. Anyone stuck indoors most of the time is almost guaranteed to be sent packing.

Basically kids don't learn to be resourceful if they never really have a need to test and use the resources at their disposal.

I'm completely against using TV to raise children as so many parents do because both parents more often than not have jobs these days assuming the parents managed to stay together. In the case of single parenting there just aren't many financially available options to turn kids into successful and indepentdent adults.

But statistically way more kids are kidnapped or sexually abused by someone in the family or a trusted member friend of the family than by a complete stranger. The easier it is for someone to get close to a child or be left entirely alone with them the more likely someone is to get to them.

I'd be almost pushing my kids out the door by the time they were 10. Go out and play. Learn about the world around you for peat's sake cause a little mischief and get into trouble. Kids tend to turn out to be more mature and overall better off later on if they make their mistakes and learn about them while their young.

I'm against the whole concept of living every day in fear that something can happen and sheltering children because of that insecurity. It's not really living in my opinion. It's just living like cattle waiting for your turn to slaughter.

Do the hard work and have talks about these things with your kids and make sure they know what options and resources are at your childs disposal should the circumstance ever present itself.

I would like to think I would fall somewhere BETWEEN being a "helicopter parent" and being careless, I would try to teach independence while maintaining some amount of supervision over them until I felt they were old enough and/or mature enough to go out on their own. stare