<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
March 19, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

Jayne: Over-watching children leaves society with black eye

By , Columbian Opinion Page Editor
Published:

It could have been me. And my wife. And our two boys, ages 11 and 6.

We could have been the ones facing questions from police and child services and anybody who subscribes to the modern ethos that children must be watched at all times. Instead, it is Danielle and Alexander Meitiv of Silver Spring, Md., who have been thrust to the forefront of an absurd national debate over how much supervision of children should be required.

The Meitivs’ children — a 10-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl — recently were walking from a park to their home about a mile away. Somebody saw them and called the police because — horrors! — the kids were alone. The children, according to the parents, were picked up by police, kept in the back of a police car for three hours, transported to a crisis center, and held for another two hours before being released to their parents.

The ridiculousness of the situation is aggravating. We’ll start with the police, who should have taken the kids to their home about three blocks from where they were picked up. Problem solved — if you believe that there was a problem to begin with.

But while a little thoughtfulness from officers and wee bit of a policy change for law enforcement can deal with the particulars of this case, they cannot address the overriding problem of how we are raising our children in this country. I wrote about this last year, in the wake of a fascinating article in The Atlantic by Hanna Rosin titled “The Overprotected Kid.” I recommend that you read it, particularly if you have young children. Go ahead … I’ll wait …

Anyway, the point of Rosin’s article was that children in the age of helicopter parenting take for granted that they are being watched. Always. Without exception. They are so accustomed to Mommy and Daddy being there to clear the world of any and all obstacles that they are failing to learn how to navigate that world by themselves.

As Danielle Meitiv told The Washington Post when the story of her wayward kids went national: “The world is actually even safer than when I was a child, and I just want to give them the same freedom and independence that I had — basically an old-fashioned childhood. I think it’s absolutely critical for their development — to learn responsibility, to experience the world, to gain confidence and competency.”

Not that I am a perfect, all-knowing parent or anything, but I agree. Parents these days, at least as far as I can tell, are so determined to provide their children with an antiseptic, cautious, risk-free existence that they are failing to prepare them for adulthood. As a friend of mine once said, “If your child hasn’t been to the ER or had stitches by the time they are 7, you’re doing something wrong.”

Learning risk-management

Parenthood is an exercise in risk-management, and part of that risk is that sometimes kids fall down and make mistakes. They will be much better prepared for adulthood if they learn to pick themselves up rather than having their parents catch them before they hit the ground.

Not that many parents follow that mantra these days. Where childhood once meant wandering in the woods and creating your own social system with friends, or playing pickup basketball in the street and resolving disputes on your own, it now means organized leagues with adult coaches and referees. It now means organized dance classes or organized swimming lessons or organized playdates. It now means an upbringing where parents make the rules and parents resolve the conflicts in every situation.

I can’t help but think that we are much worse off because of it. I can’t help but think that we are raising a generation devoid of adventure and self-exploration.

Danielle and Alexander Meitiv of Silver Spring, Md., allowed their kids to expand their boundaries a little bit and wound up in an unnecessarily nightmarish situation. It just as easily could have been my family.

Loading...