Are you familiar with the cartoon Max and Ruby. It started off as a book series by Rosemary Wells, and has been adapted for television. I love the stories, as does Alexander. What I love about them is the simplicity of life it portrays.
Max and Ruby live in a world where children can walk to the park on their own, take the bus to go play at their friends house, go over the grandma's house through their back yard and have a hill they can sled down in the winter.
Ruby spends much of her time talking to her dolls, writing stories, making music, baking, gardening and being a Bunny Scout earning her badges. Max plays with his toys, makes mud pies and like any other boy, gets in to lot so mischief.
My husband gets very upset at the fact that there is never any parent supervision. Although there is a bunny scout leader and Grandma who are both grown ups, he is still extremely bothered by the fact that Ruby has to deal with Max all the time.
I think it is really a look back in the times. Many of the things that Ruby does, my mother did as a young girl, minus the scouts. It was a time that was socially easier, people had more trust in the world around them and parents weren't over parenting. They allowed children to play and to discover things on their own. Children were allowed to be children.
Just the other day I was at the park and a little boy wanted to badly to climb up the ladder to go down the slide and his mother repeatedly pulled him off because it was too dangerous. She wanted him to go down the slide that had the stairs leading up to it and that had a plastic slide. But that little boy was very persistent, and unfortunately it ended in tears with the mom taking him home for disobeying her.
I felt horrible for the little boy because he really wanted to test his skill and to see if he could do something. In situations like this, I say let children explore, and make sure you help make it safe. Stay behind them on the ladder and hold their hand as they sit at the top. After a while of being told they can't do things because it is unsafe, children will stop trying to do things in all situations and will rely on you to tell them where to go or what to do.
I understand that the times we live in now are very different than they were before. But I do think we can create a world for our children that is more simple and less focused on our needs and fears as parents. We need to focus on the needs of our children, things they should experience to grow and develop in as many areas as possible.
Cheers!
