Raising a Child Outside of the Mainstream

Below are some photos of my daughter enjoying some unschooling while we hung around the South of Spain for a year and a half. She entertained herself with beachcombing, painting pebbles, gymnastics, fishing, fire-building, doll-play, reading and playing her instruments. She wore mostly charity shop and flea market bought clothes.

 
She never went back to school and has been homeschooled for four years. She's not watched TV since she was two, never owned a phone or gadget (apart from an £11 retro gameboy type thing she can use very occasionally), very restricted access to modern music, very few modern films, no social media, etc).

 
Poor kid missing out! She'll hate me when she's older.

If you can, raise your children freerange, awake, gadget-free, home-schooled and matrix-protected as much as possible. Even if you have to lose income, lose friends, suffer societal wrath and go it alone. I don't know what the outcome of this rebellious act will be for either of us, but I do know that the alternative is fruitless, so avoid it at all costs.

Freedom - the vital component of childhood

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction."

How many of you wish for your freedoms to be preserved while not giving your children the freedom they need? Do you stay at home to avoid terrorism? No, but you keep your children inside to avoid the miniscule risk they would face. How would you feel if you were told you must stay at home to avoid the risk of a terrorist attack? You, of course, would suddenly feel imprisoned against your will and react with hysteria, and rightly so. The only reason why children do not react to the same restrictions is because they were born a prisoner: they know no different. Many children will also support the captor, you, but many prisoners and hostages also support their captors. 

That's Stockholm Syndrome.

When I was one years old I walked to the corner shop in just my flip-flops to buy a chew from the penny tray. When I was a toddler I played with my tricycle at the bottom of our safe road. When I was four I walked to school, crossing a few roads, with my two older sisters. When I was six I walked to school on my own. When I was seven I was cycling miles out to the countryside and back, all stocked up with my survival kit; sandwich, pocket radio, box of matches, torch and Yorkshire Terrier....all packed safely in the basket. Those days out would end at dinner time, when it was dark. My mother never asked where I'd been. Mother's didn't worry about things like that then. Children went out for a long time and came back when they were hungry, usually with some scratches, and that was that. A year or two later I was getting the bus alone into the town centre, often clutching a tissue box of baby mice to sell to the pet shop....one of the ways I made some pocket money. No-one ever thought anything of it. Children alone on buses was not front page material then.

Some of the strongest memories I have are of when I was off exploring on my bicycle for hours on end with a friend or alone. Often going off the beaten path, building a temporary shelter, burning a little fire, building a dam, catching a tiny fish.... These excursions were about testing survival skills and practicing being an adult. I would go into another world in which I was a daring and capable adventurer. Every time I went out I would push my limits that bit further by cycling faster, going further, taking a new path, exploring new woods.... I was the master of my own destiny during these many trips out, totally absorbed in nature and empowered by my daring and strength. I was in the zone and I liked it! My daring during these almost weekly days out became my inner badge of honour as a child and helped me through difficult experiences and let downs. I always had THAT to rely on...I had conquered the countryside and I could take care of myself. I thank my childhood freedom for my life-long inner source of personal power that every child has the human right to develop. This personal power is not something showy or even noticeable but something rooted deep inside and tapped into as a helpful reminder. Because of this, childhood freedom is one of my fundamental principals and one I insisted on granting my own child despite the wrath of the curtain twitchers.

Children taken on a walk in the countryside with their parents and siblings will not go into 'the zone' but may well 'zone out'. They are not going to get that buzz of inner strength from going on a family picnic. Will they develop a lifelong love of the countryside after only being in it with squabbling siblings or will they forever associate it with arguments? 

Parents have, on the whole, been over-protective for about a generation. Does that mean freedom is lost? Lost in one generation? Many of those new adults will not know about what I know about. They will never have experienced this sense of adventure born out of complete freedom. That kind of adventure will only have been available to them in the movies....other children acting out exciting experiences they never came close to. 

Of course, what today's rulers want they get. They want the new adults coming through to be inside types, technology consumers, weak willed, unadventurous, obedient slaves. They do not want daring, courageous people who do not buy the gadgets but do spend time in the countryside. They want homogenised unquestioning urbanites because that is what will suit their future plans, in which much of the countryside will be off limits.

So, what are you training your kids to become? 

Free people who will value and protect their freedoms and the freedoms of their children? Or slaves? Which are you?

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Free Range Kids or Cotton Wool Kids? It's a group thing.....

Free range kids get a lot of attention, as do their parents. It's not an easy thing to do to choose this route because all eyes will be on you, the one who dared to go against the norm. Most people like to act in accordance with the norm (the group) and find anyone who acts outside of the norm to be intolerable, unfathomable or even insulting. If you act independently of your society you open yourself up to group rage because the obedient followers of the pack mentality feel threatened by renegades no matter how wrong the group may be or how right the renegade may be. The hostility aimed at the independent thinker has little to do with facts and much to do with feelings.

Why is it the West has been infected with this pervasive over-protective mentality that has gotten so extreme it must surely have permanently thwarted our latest generation? Did each individual parent choose to be over-protective because they each knew the danger was too great to risk their children's welfare? No, of course not. They copied this mentality from other parents due to assuming they, the group, must be right and they fashioned their style around what they felt they should do to be like most other people. Their style was chosen because of a lack of confidence in their own beliefs and because of the desire to fit in and be accepted by the group and not because of individual research and consideration. The group got their style from the media, which no doubt intended to see a generation of kids kept cooped up. They didn't make 'Home Alone' for nothing. The rulers of this planet want to condition your children to be captives and not free people. What do you want them to be and what are you conditioning them to become?

The first non-conformist parents in a society to break the mould and dare to be different by opening the front door and saying, 'Out you go, have fun, be back by dark' will find themselves up against a wall of hysterical reactionary abuse. Remember, the group was not formed around facts and it will not re-form around truths without first letting out a lot of toddler tantrums!

The video above explains conformity and points out that the members of the group will deny the facts in order to fit in. This is why it's going to be a long hard road to get kids back outside playing freely as they have done throughout all of history. The fact may be they are much better off in slightly risky situations than to be protected at all times but facts will not be enough to affect a change. What is needed is for the free-range mentality to become popular, fashionable, etc. People can be persuaded to modify their parenting style in the same way they are persuaded to upgrade their wardrobe. If it's all the rage, they'll go for it! 

What is going to transform the now 'world's worst mum's into trendsetters? The 'world's worst mum's kids of course! When the cooped up kids become young adults with no muscles, unused looking limbs, delicate hands (male and female), hunched shoulders, forward head posture, repetitive strain injured thumbs, reluctant conversation skills, an aversion to bacteria, an immature persona and a permanent problem with boredom the evidence will not be so easy to overlook. And when the free-range kids grow up to be strong, fit, healthy, confident, sociable, expressive, adventurous, capable, streetwise, self-reliant and easily entertained, suddenly the future has tangible projections for new parents. The likes of Lenore Skenazy will thus become the people to emulate...the new trendsetters. 

It's only when the stark reality of choosing group acceptance over what's best for a new parent's child hits home will the power of the group be broken. The product will be the proof. 'I want one of those!' is what new parents will be thinking and no amount of peer pressure will dissuade them. It's a pity so many parents treat their kids like a fashion accessory, only doing what they think is the done thing of the moment rather than doing what they deep down believe is best for their kids. Hopefully the tide will change and it will become fashionable to raise kids again and not little prisoners with Stockholm Syndrome. 

Taking the free-range route is by no means the easy route but right now it is seen as just that. No, the easy route is the one that does not expose you to the wrath of society! The wrath of society is a real and present danger that lurks in the shadows of our neighbourhoods, but behind twitching curtains and inside stony faces and not trees. There is no denying the threat posed by the majority of people around you when you choose to stand firm in your beliefs. It is the majority that poses the greatest threat to the long term welfare of children in today's world and not the very tiny minority. But, as the majority sees, little by little, the product of your defiance, little by little they will twitch their curtains less and the positive feedback will replace the negative. 

So, free range parents....stand firm in your beliefs, carry the cross of sense and be the masters of your children's destinies as you defy the curtain twitching captors!

Over-protective Parents are NOT Protecting Their Children

Over-protective parents are not protecting their children because they don't know where the real and present danger lies. They have been brain washed--due to the media, the tongue wagging Mothers' Army, curtain twitchers and Social Services snitchers--into thinking the danger lies outside when in fact it lies inside. 

A couple of years ago, when my daughter was a very independent and outdoorsy six year old, I went to a sunset beach gathering with a friend from England and his male friend....two men. My friend was used to my relaxed approach to parenting and equally used to my daughter being free to come and go. However, his friend was shocked to the point of shuddering when he saw my daughter scampering down the beach and me not chasing after her but, dare I say it, enjoying myself!

His inner rage approaching boiling point, he stood up and followed my daughter like a robotic policeman; stomp stomp stomp. As it's easier to catch a squid with one left hand than it is to entrap my daughter against her will, he gave up and stomped back. 

"As I am a responsible parent I felt the need to follow your daughter seeing as you didn't feel the need to do it yourself!" He announced on his return, steam now coming out of his ears. 

Not being used to such hostility and objection, I didn't quite know what to say and had to hold back a laugh.

My daughter had been able to explore this tourist covered beach during these events since she was about four. I distinctly remember the time she got quite adventurous when we went with my parents and saw her, not much older than a toddler, making her way up the stone path at the end of the cove that leads to the dive spot. It was just her and one man, who looked like a very good looking Jesus, at this very visible vantage point. Many people watched in anticipation of what was to come next having watched my daughter confidently make her jaunt. It was such a captivating scene because the man she was now partner to was not only doing a yoga headstand but a naked yoga headstand! One an upside down naked Jesus facing the crowd and the other a naked little blonde angel facing Jesus. If only I had had my camera I could have won a competition! The man eventually righted himself so he could have a proper look at his new podium partner and the two of them stared at each other, almost like two aliens from different planets. The exchange was eventually broken by my daughter being reminded of her reason for being there. She made a half-hearted attempt at plucking up the courage to leap into the water but, after a few minutes, turned around as expected and made her way back to the beach where lots of people were having a jolly good giggle. Jesus, now looking dumb struck, obviously didn't expect his show to be turned into a comedy. 

So, two years on and semi-clothed, my daughter romping about the beach, playing with the other equally liberated kids and having a go on a bongo drum was not going to worry me in the slightest; I was a well practiced cool mamma by then. 

But this man, who had gone on holiday without his kids, was far from cool--he was so hot with rage you could have lit a campfire with him!

But how do you even start to find common ground with someone who has sucked all the media hype in with gusto and built some of his persona on top of it? He would never understand my style because that would mean accepting his style was wrong; we can't both be right; there is only one right. Yes, I do believe that is the case although each situation will have its own 'right'. If he lived next to the M5 in London in a tower block then his situation would require his style and not mine, but mine is still the right one if you wish to turn out an adult who has lived a fantastic and developmentally beneficial childhood. 

I tried to explain that life is different here and people generally think differently; parents generally allow their kids to roam free on beaches, at parties, etc. although in varying degrees. You do still get lots of helicopter parents who proudly admit they never ever let their child play outside without them and never ever let them have sleepovers because--you got it--'you just never know'. But most children here have far more freedom to play unsupervised than in England. 

Did he soften back into a human after being a robot fuming at the rivet holes? No. 

I sat down with him, mostly to try to calm him down before he completely malfunctioned. I asked him whether his children ever played outside alone and if not why not. He said they never played outside alone because of pedophiles. What a surprise? That old chestnut. I explained to him that the chance of a child being abducted by a stranger is one in a million but his mind was made up; the risk was there and it needed to be tackled with extreme measures; the kids had to be locked up for their own protection!

I asked him what they did inside, did they have TVs/DVDs/internet/computer games in their bedrooms. 'Oh yes, of course--they have everything.' 

"Hmmmmm....."

He looked at me and I wondered whether or not I should break it to him or just let it pass. I decided to break it to him. 

"You do know they are far more likely to be approached by pedophiles in their own bedrooms while on the internet than out playing in the street?"

No response other than a look of incredulity. 

"Young boys are only a few clicks away from extreme pornography and, left to their own devices in their bedrooms, will have very little to stop them from becoming porn-aware or even porn-addicted children."

Oh no, not his children; that is what other people's children might do but not his. No, no, I was wrong; his boys were good boys, obviously not realising both naughty boys and good boys can get drawn into the darker corners of the internet. But, shaking his head slightly while looking into the distance, he suddenly seemed less focused on me and my daughter and more focused on his own thoughts. 

So, we were both in denial that our respective children were going to come to any harm but at the end of our stay at the beach my daughter skipped to the car giggling and energised but, of the sons of this father, who knows? Time will reveal all.

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The play deficit by Peter Gray

The Play Deficit by Peter Gray is a 5000 word essay published by Aeon Magazine that is so fascinating I have decided I shouldn't post exerts because I believe you really need to read every word. This essay is not one to glance at as it brilliantly yet very simply explains why play is so important to children and how modern society has been going in the wrong direction for thirty or more years. It is time to reverse the clock....to go The Retro Way....and get back to the 50s when kids had hours every day and all weekend to play free outside without adults snooping on them. 

Please read this insightful essay here.

Mollycoddled kids 'grow up as narcissists'

In other words....mothers get lost! 

Phew, thank goodness for that! The thought of mother spying on their kids from a park bench or kitchen window while they play whilst thinking their kids are experiencing free play was seriously creeping me out. The number of mothers who I've come across on a forum recently who never ever let their kids play unsupervised is frightening. 

Here are some exerts from the article below....

Parents who hover around their children while they play with their friends risk turning them into narcissists, a leading psychologist has warned.

Dr Peter Gray said ‘free play’ - where children are left to their own devices, undirected by adults - is the primary means by which children overcome narcissism and build up their capacity for empathy. 

'Free play... is how they learn to make their own decisions, solve their own problems, negotiate with others as equals, see from others' points of view, make friends, and manage risks. Free play is how children practice taking charge of their own lives. It is how they learn to make their own decisions, solve their own problems, negotiate with others as equals, see from others’ points of view, make friends, and manage risks. It is also how they learn to control fear and anger.’

But if a parent is hovering nearby and steps in whenever someone gets upset or angry, they deprive children of the opportunity to learn to control these emotions themselves.

‘When children are continuously managed and directed by adults, they don’t develop an internal locus of control,’ he said.

Dr Gray advises that, where a ‘play date’ situation is unavoidable, adults should make themselves scarce as much as possible. ‘It depends on the age of the children, but for children aged four and older the parents should, to the degree possible, vanish. Even if they are present with no intention to intervene, they may not be able to avoid intervening. When adults are present, children in our culture look to the adults to solve their problems rather than figure out how to solve them themselves.'

‘Trust breeds trustworthiness. Children are far more competent – far more able to take responsibility for themselves and one another – than most of us give them credit for, but they need the freedom to practise that responsibility or else it atrophies.’

Read the whole article here. 

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The Importance of Outdoor Play

The Importance of Outdoor Play - Part 1

Discussing the importance of outdoor play for children's early social, psychological and physical development. Also covering the tendency for parents today to not use critical judgement and turning a blind eye to intuition. Parents are out of tune with their natural instincts. Media hype is creating irrational paranoia in parents. Children's happiness in play should be the focus instead of academic achievement or potential future careers. Children learn best from experience and therefore the outdoors is the best science lesson. Parents need to allow children the opportunity to discover their own passions and they can do that by providing plenty of opportunity for free unstructured outdoor play. 

Part 2

Cotton Wool Kids - Last Paradise Film

Last Paradise is a film produced by a Kiwi who wanted to express his fears for the future of mankind. His belief is that kids need to be exposed to nature from a young age in order to feel comfortable in it and to feel bonded to it, and therefore champion its causes in the future. Without these children, with their free and risky childhoods, the future of environmentalism at least is in doubt. Too many children are wrapped up in cotton wool by over-protective and irrationally fearful parents and they never get the chance to really feel at home in the wilderness. He points out that children who are plied with gadgets by parents determined to turn them out as the next Steve Jobs will not be the innovators of the future but the consumers and that it will be the free and wild kids who have the mental capacity and flexibility to think of novel ideas. 

Watch this video to find out more about his very sensible and logical ideas.

Children who play unsupervised turn out fitter and more sociable, study says

Some exerts from the article on free range kids below...

Letting youngsters explore their surroundings without an adult present is "one of the best things a parent can do for their child's physical health and personal development", researchers claim.

Professor Roger Mackett, who led the study, said: "Allowing children to leave the house without an accompanying adult has significant benefits.

"The health benefits are clear, but without action the less tangible benefits of increased independence and self-reliance will be lost.

"That may be a very great loss with many implications." 

Read the entire article here.

Children today are mollycoddled prisoners - it's no surprise they turn into extreme sports fanatics

Some exerts from the article below...

What's more, jittery, neurotic parents don't need any more false scares to shit their pants over. They're already raising their twatty little offspring like mollycoddled prisoners: banned from playing outdoors in case a paedophile ring burrows through the pavement and eats them, locked indoors with nothing but anti-bacterial plasma screens for company, ferried to and from school in spluttering rollcaged tanks. . . Christ, half these kids would view choking to death as a release.

No wonder they grow up to become tiresome whooping advocates for extreme sports. If I'd spent the first 18 years of my life doing time in a joyless cotton-wool cell, listening to some angsty bloody parent banging on about how precious and special I was every fucking day, I'd snowboard off a 300ft cliff at the first opportunity too. Under those circumstances, tumbling down a rockface and cracking your skull open must feel like a declaration of independence crossed with an orgasm. 

Read the rest of the article here. 

Kids stay indoors: What happened to, ‘Go outside and play’?

Some exerts from the article below about free range kids being in decline...

Stroll down any residential street these summer days and you'll find a curious absence — of children. 

Alliance for Childhood, a nonprofit advocacy group, complained that,“Compared to the 1970s, children now spend 50 percent less time in unstructured outdoor activities. Children ages 10 to 16 now spend, on average, only 12.6 minutes per day in vigorous physical activity. Yet they spend an average of 10.4 waking hours each day relatively motionless."

40 percent of the kids in the British study, which was commissioned by Playday, a group advocating outdoor activity, said they would like to play outside more often. Their parents simply didn't allow it.

Read the entire article here.

Why our children need to get outside and engage with nature

On the subject of free range kids, here are some exerts from the article below....

• if, like 64% of kids today, you played outside less than once a week, or were one of the 28% who haven't been on a country walk in the last year, the 21% who've never been to a farm and the 20% who have never once climbed a tree, you wouldn't know much about nature either.

• The distance our kids stray from home on their own has shrunk by 90% since the 70s; 43% of adults think a child shouldn't play outdoors unsupervised until the age of 14. More children are now admitted to British hospitals for injuries incurred falling out of bed than falling out of trees.

• But a growing body of evidence is starting to show that it's not so much what children know about nature that's important, as what happens to them when they are in nature (and not just in it, but in it by themselves, without grownups). Respectable scientists – doctors, mental health experts, educationalists, sociologists – are beginning to suggest that when kids stop going out into the natural world to play, it can affect not just their development as individuals, but society as a whole.

• the chance of a child being killed by a stranger in Britain is, literally, one in a million, and has been since the 70s.

• On the website childrenandnature.org, Louv cites a lengthening list of scientific studies indicating that time spent in free play in the natural world – a free-range childhood, perhaps – has a huge impact on health.

• Obesity is perhaps the most visible symptom of the lack of such play, but literally dozens of studies from around the world show regular time outdoors produces significant improvements in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, learning ability, creativity and mental, psychological and emotional wellbeing.

• Free and unstructured play in the outdoors boosts problem-solving skills, focus and self-discipline. Socially, it improves cooperation, flexibility, and self-awareness. Emotional benefits include reduced aggression and increased happiness.

Read the entire article here.

A Nation of Wimps

Hara Marano, editor-at-large and the former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, has been watching a disturbing trend: kids are growing up to be wimps. They can’t make their own decisions, cope with anxiety, or handle difficult emotions without going off the deep end. Teens lack leadership skills. College students engage in deadly binge drinking. Graduates can’t even negotiate their own salaries without bringing mom or dad in for a consult. Why? Because hothouse parents raise teacup children—brittle and breakable, instead of strong and resilient. This crisis threatens to destroy the fabric of our society, to undermine both our democracy and economy. Without future leaders or daring innovators, where will we go? So what can be done?

Kids would play in the street until their mothers hailed them for supper, and unless a child was called into the principal’s office, parents and teachers met only at organized conferences. Nowadays, parents are involved in every aspect of their children’s lives—even going so far as using technology to monitor what their kids eat for lunch at school and accompanying their grown children on job interviews. What is going on?

Hothouse parenting has hit the mainstream—with disastrous effects. Parents are going to ludicrous lengths to take the lumps and bumps out of life for their children, but the net effect of parental hyperconcern and scrutiny is to make kids more fragile. When the real world isn’t the discomfort-free zone kids are accustomed to, they break down in myriad ways. Why is it that those who want only the best for their kids wind up bringing out the worst in them? There is a mental health crisis on college campuses these days, with alarming numbers of students engaging in self-destructive behaviors like binge drinking and cutting or disconnecting through depression. 

A Nation of Wimps is the first book to connect the dots between overparenting and the social crisis of the young. Psychology expert Hara Marano reveals how parental overinvolvement hinders a child’s development socially, emotionally, and neurologically. Children become overreactive to stress because they were never free to discover what makes them happy in the first place.

Through countless hours of painstaking research and interviews, Hara Marano focuses on the whys and how of this crisis and then turns to what we can do about it in this thought-provoking and groundbreaking book.

A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting: Hara Estroff Marano: 9780767924030: Amazon.com: Books

Free Range Kids: Setting Children Free

On the theme of free range kids, here are some exerts from the paper Setting children free: Children's Independent Movement in the Local Environment. 

• Parental concerns about children’s safety and security are restricting children’s independent exploration of the local environment. Children are being denied important opportunities to exercise, to acquire decision-making skills, such as crossing the road safely, and to develop social skills through interaction with their peers.

• In Great Britain, children have suffered a loss of freedom in terms of being allowed to go out of the home alone in recent years. For example, in 1985/86, 21% of children aged 5-10 travelled alone to school. By 2005 this had dropped to 6% (Department of Transport, 2002, 2006). 

• They found that in England, 80% of 7-8 year olds were allowed to go to school alone in 1971. By 1990 this had dropped to 9%. 

• It can be seen that that in almost all cases, more of the children who are allowed out without an adult visit more of the places than those who are not. This suggests that being allowed out without an adult can offer the opportunity to visit more places. 

• Children who are allowed out alone are able to visit a greater range of places, particularly to shops and sports facilities. Children who are allowed out without an adult are more likely to spend time outdoors than other children, and to visit a friend’s house frequently. 

• This paper has shown that more of those who are allowed out without an adult go to various places, and that when children are out alone or just with their friends they behave rather differently. Rather than walking along at an adult pace to reach the destination as quickly as possible they move around in the environment much more. 

• It will take further research to establish exactly what they gain from this more exploratory type of movement, but it is based on them deciding where to go and what to do, and that is an important part of growing up. It is being lost to children who are not allowed out without an adult, and that may be a very great loss with all sorts of implications.