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On summer days, my 10-year-old daughter, Avery, often rides her bike by herself or plays at the park with friends, unsupervised. Come September, she?ll walk the three blocks home from her Calgary school alone, or she?ll leave with a gaggle of grade-five kids to attend an after-school program.
Avery delights in her growing freedom and especially loves inventing games with a neighbourhood posse. It?s a chance for them to make up and enforce the rules without adults present to impose limits on their fun.
The benefits of unsupervised, unstructured play are well-documented. ?Kids need practice making decisions, coming up with something to do and getting themselves out of boredom, and that practice comes when they are in charge of themselves and their activities,? says Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry). This kind of independent free time also gives kids a chance to problem solve, compromise and communicate with other children across ages and genders, she says. Is my child ready" The best gauge might simply be your child?s eagerness. Jennifer Pinarski considered her eight-year-old son?s pleas for independence based on his enthusiasm alone. ?Isaac?s been begging me to go bike riding by himself for a long time,? says the mother of two, who lives in a rural area outside Kingston, Ont. Isaac already uses public bathrooms by himself and plays unsupervised on the family?s one-ac...