Would you?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122618908#Comment_122618908

What i've noticed from living on the continent (although not Norway) is that there is definitely a correlation between kids being given responsibility when growing up and integrating into their community a lot more and even wanting to integrate.

Now of course, this does not mean there's a direct link - but contrast it to Ireland where they're not even judged responsible enough to dress themselves approriately for school or even choose what they want to actually study at school in the first place.

Pauliedragon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122618942#Comment_122618942

In Sweden making kids wear school uniforms is considered a human rights violation.

https://www.echolive.ie/corkviews/arid-41465197.html#:~:text=In%20Sweden%2C%20the%20School%20Inspectorate,that%20includes%20choice%20of%20clothing.

rainagain

I lived in Switzerland for two years and it took a while to get used to seeing kids around aged 6 and up go to school on their own.

Made friends with Swiss people who were in their late 20s, and I took them for mid 30s at least because of the way they approached things, mature, had life experience, assured without being cocky. Got a complete surprise when I found out their ages. Definitely there's something about growing up with some independence and responsibility, and then becoming a competent adult. Can see it in how society there is as a whole - nowhere is perfect, but some countries definitely are much nicer places to spend a lot of time.

While I did see groups of teenagers in the same attire as here (tracksuits and puffy jackets), never felt like I needed to give them a wide berth.

CelticRambler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122618450#Comment_122618450

As an "ex-pat" in Britain initially, I had a romantic idea of what life was like in Ireland and thought it'd be a better place to raise children than in England. Then the opportunity arose to move back to Ireland and I (and MrsCR) realised it was heading down the same track - so, so much American-style commercialisation of everything, including homes, gardens, community halls, childcare, children's activities, children's entertainment, as well as the gotta-have-a-car mentality ; and so much "risk" attributed to not particularly risky behaviours and situations, frequently (and to this day) with an implicit threat of litigation.

It's entirely speculative on my part, but having watched these developments unfold over the decades, it seems that a huge amount of this is passively absorbed from transatlantic attitudes that had no particular relevance to a British or Irish culture - but we adopted them anyway.

Back then, MrsCR & I decided to opt for the Continental alternative, and even to this day - thanks to continued contact with children and young adults on both sides of the Celtic Sea/English Channel - I still see the advantages in a "language barrier" and old-school traditions keeping my adopted homeland (and adjacent countries) on different path, one where children and adults are allowed be "free range" if they want, and talk to strangers, and take a lift from a passer by, and invite someone into their home/stay the night even if they only met them that afternoon … oh, and be in a public place serving alcoholic beverages after nine pm.

thereiver

Before smartphones kids had playstation consoles or PC games and I think life is different if you live in rural areas or a town versus Dublin city I think there's more crime in certain areas than there was in 2009

Raichų

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122618942#Comment_122618942

when I was in school we were told it’s to stop bullying (uniforms I mean). Supposedly if some kids have Nike outfits and others are wearing clothes from penneys, they’d be bullied as a result.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122619298#Comment_122619298

Heard the same thing - and I've never bought into that (or any other reason) for a uniform for two reasons:

1 - if doesn't work.

2 - if schools wanted to stop bullying, they'd have stopped it.

Also doesn't make sense considering when I went to school you could have had your socks confiscated if they were the wrong shade of grey.

Most continental schools still have dress codes that usually prohibit things like branded clothing as well as sports shirts and anything political (and in some cases, religious).

deirdremf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122618465#Comment_122618465

not everything that happens, crime or otherwise enters the realms of the media

While this is true, it is also missing the point in more than one way.

First of all - why do you mention the media? Crime statistics are not gathered by the media, but are available by a quick internet search.

But even if your point is that not all crime is reported to the police, it is likely that proportionally the reporting rate vs the non-reporting rate will be similar from one place to the next.

Sardonicat

It sounds like the seventies without the beatings and verbal abuse.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122618451#Comment_122618451

I once left my then 15/16 year old at home in bed while I went to work. It was mid-term. I worked mornings only at the time. I left home at 8am and would have been home by 2:30pm.

During the morning some incident happened on my road and the Gardai were involved (can't remember what). They were knocking on doors asking if anyone had seen or heard anything. My daughter answered the door and the Garda asked could they speak to an adult. She said I was at work.

Next thing, I got a phone call from my daughter who was upset because the Garda were questioning her about how often did I leave her at home alone, how long for, and when would I be home. At 15/16 years old!

On the topic of the Norwegian way of parenting - would I? No.

I'm all for fostering independance in children, but that way is a little (or a lot) too hands off for my liking.

My grown up children's father a man who never heard of parenting styles and wouldn't have a interest in them anyway

He always had this thing about what he called plastic fun which he considered any paid for entertainment for children so any plastic entertainment was balanced by things like hiking, walking, sea swimming giving them the message that you dont need money to enjoy yourself so now as adults they hike swim and live a very outdoor based life.

taxAHcruel

An issue of course - like with many things in life - is that people tend to judge only by what they see. They do not get the full picture at all. So if they see one small example of "hands off" parenting they can assume this is all that's going on.

If people did that with me there are certainly things they would see that could lead them to think "neglect" or "abuse" or "free range" or other words like have been referenced on the thread. When in fact quite the opposite is the truth. It's takes consistent engagement and development and guidance and "hands on" to develop the aspects of their lives that might look the exact opposite to the outside.

It actually reminds me of a snide comment about parenting and diet once made to me when I was coming out of McDonalds with my two youngest. Some goon saw nothing but me coming out of McDonalds and decided it was their place to comment.

Goon did not think to look at the children to see how absolutely healthy they were. Nor did goon get to see how absolutely top class and high quality their diet is day to day year to year usually. No - it was enough to see one thing in a single moment and extrapolate to an assumption that they had the full picture of how I parent and what I feed my children. So all there was to do was laugh in goon's face and walk on.

As for "failing" and allowing them to fail - that certainly is an important part of how I parent for sure. Tend to avoid - and was quite happy to see my kids on a couple of occasions reject without input from me - things like "participation medals" and the like of it. But in general trying and failing is as important here as trying and winning or trying and succeeding. I've an acquaintance who watches his kids like a hawk doing pretty much everything and the second it looks like it might even probably go astray he is jumping in going "wait wait let me do it!". Never noticing how defeated and shoulder slumpy his kids get each time. Then he complains they are on their phones the whole time doing nothing. Duh - of course they are - he never lets them DO anything.

So in short - I'd say I have a lot of overlap with the article in the OP but not in a "just send them off to work it out for themselves because they have to" kind of way. More in a "Develop them and guide them to the standard where they can do it by themselves" kind of way. Or as the reverse of how a user above put it - I teach them self dependence rather than forcing them to develop it on their own or crash and burn.

If I had small children today I wouldn't parent like the Norwegians not because I think any harm would come to the children but because the worrie that something could happen would kill me!

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122620427#Comment_122620427

So in short - I'd say I have a lot of overlap with the article in the OP but not in a "just send them off to work it out for themselves because they have to" kind of way. More in a "Develop them and guide them to the standard where they can do it by themselves" kind of way. Or as the reverse of how a user above put it - I teach them self dependence rather than forcing them to develop it on their own or crash and burn.

Ahh that’s not quite how ‘twas put though tax:

I’m not suggesting that was the OP’s intent, or that it is the intent of anyone here, but there are plenty of parents in Ireland who let their children raise themselves and the children develop independence because they have to, in the absence of their parents; not because they are taught to develop independence by their parents.

Your description of how you provide care for your own children isn’t anything exceptional, unusual or extraordinary at all, it’s pretty much the standard as to how parents generally provide care for their children and raise their children. It’s so normal that parents don’t actually consider it requires a special label to distinguish it from any other way of parents providing care for their children.

That lack of a label is precisely what distinguishes it from what its advocates call “free-range parenting”. Its advocates regard it as something exceptional, unusual or extraordinary. I’d suggest they mustn’t get out much, but that’s trite. The point being that the concept of “it takes a village to raise a child” is not a new or revolutionary concept - it’s practiced in many cultures the world over. In reading the article, most readers, not just yourself, will have spotted overlap with many different styles of raising children or providing care for children, even those readers who are not parents themselves, but in how they were raised themselves by their own parents.

The parts where they don’t overlap, where readers see differences, is where that style of raising children departs from parents teaching their children to develop independence, and goes into children developing independence because they have to, in the absence of their parents. That’s what “free-range parenting” is, they’ve managed to put a positive spin on child neglect, or as it is more commonly referred to by putting the emphasis on children - “latchkey kids”, definitely not a new concept either, historically perceived as a negative concept in that it doesn’t teach children independence as an important part of child development, but rather children learning to be independent for themselves, out of necessity, in the absence of their parents. Whenever this topic comes up I’m always reminded of the wit of Oscar Wilde in The Importance of Being Earnest:

Lady Bracknell: “To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

https://newmr.org/blog/to-lose-one-may-be-regarded-as-a-misfortune-to-lose-two-looks-like-carelessness/

In your circumstances your children have the advantages of, by all accounts - not just the influence of one very hands-on parent, not just the influence of two parents, but the influence of three parents 😁

CelticRambler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122619298#Comment_122619298

"Supposedly" is right. My children (well, DtrNo1 primarily) had the advantage of being the only child in the school to be dressed by Penneys (thanks to Grandma Rambler) and was considered a style icon! The rest of the children wore a mix of Carrefour's Finest, handmedowns and whatever their grannies bought them. :D

School uniforms (in England) were one of the consumerist concepts that really got on our nerves, with the dress code being so precisely defined that all the clothes cost more than we would have otherwise spent. And then there was the £20 jumper with the school logo, that everyone had to have and could only be ordered through the school. £20 for something that only ever got worn around the waist, if at all … and then had to be re-ordered when the (first) child got a year older.

CelticRambler

That’s what “free-range parenting” is, they’ve managed to put a positive spin on child neglect, or as it is more commonly referred to by putting the emphasis on children - “latchkey kids”, definitely not a new concept either, historically perceived as a negative concept in that it doesn’t teach children independence as an important part of child development, but rather children learning to be independent for themselves, out of necessity, in the absence of their parents. 

Well, that's one way of looking at it. What I see, though, is a heck of a lot of children in Ireland and the UK (especially urban/suburban familie) that experience all the negative aspects of the "latchkey" tradition with little or none of the positives of the "free range" lifestyle. They get sent off to school in the morning, maybe early enough to go to a "breakfast club", get picked up later, often from an "after school club", and get shuttled from one programmed activity to another day after day after day.

Even on holidays (see so many posts in the holiday forum here on boards) they're fired into a "kids' club" as soon as they arrive at their destination, doing pretty much the same activities they could be doing at home instead of something new, something with their parents. They have to learn to fend for themselves because their parents keep fobbing them off onto miscellaneous third parties. You'll even hear (and read on th'internet) parents talking about how they can't wait for the children to go (or go back) to school so they can "get my life back".

That's the flip side of "free range parenting" - parents who actually want to spend time with their children; will take them up mountains and across deserts, because children are well able to cope with that kind of thing; will take them out in the evenings and stay out till 12, 2, 4am because that's when the party/dance/concert ends; will take them out of school during term time because they'll learn a heck of a lot more in two adventurous weeks than sitting in a classroom staring out the window …

esker72

There's a fear of leaving kids have too much freedom now. It's not based on crime stats or anything but it won't stop parents being super conservative when deciding what leeway to allow their kids. You just don't want to be in a position where something happens and you're asking the question why did I take the chance. From a very early age we were out and about and had all the freedom we wanted, only coming back for meals, walking to and from school, heading off to play sport with mates from school, hanging out in their houses with no real rules about when we had to be back home. We never got into any hassle (that anyone found out about) and I don't remember any lads in white vans looking to kidnap us. As it turns out the biggest danger was in the school.

Roll on to today and my kid gets walked to school at 11 years of age. Do I think she could walk the 700 yards to school by herself? 100% but there's no way I'm taking the chance of anything happening and having to live with it. It's a complete nonsense and the opposite to how I grew up but it's just the way things are now and I only see it getting worse.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122621244#Comment_122621244

To be fair, it's more about responsibility than freedom. Well, it's about both, really - but ultimately it's trusting them. And it's this trust that garners the mutual respect between teenager and community.

I'm curious to know, though: you don't let your 11yo walk the 700 yards to school alone (if I understrand you correctly) - is this only to school, or everywhere? Surely she's been 700 yards away from the home on her own at some point - to sports/dance/art/friends' houses - or do you always accompany her?

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122621040#Comment_122621040

Except 'twas how it was put. That's exactly what I was referring to. The idea that some children have to develop the independence out of necessity and not because they were taught to or properly guided to it. And since also I did not claim I was doing anything "Exceptional, unusual, or extraordinary" I am not sure what any of your reply is even targetted at to be honest. Certainly nothing I wrote anyway.

That said though - I suspect you are reading a lot into the article that is not there. The article - like my own post - describes much about how the author sees the children from the outside. It gives no background at all about how the parents guided them to that observed state. Whether by neglect or by a very hands on approach. There is nothing in that article indicating any child neglect is (or, to be fair, is not) in play.

So when you write "readers see differences" it appears the only reader is you seeing this difference. When you write "raising children departs from parents teaching their children to develop independence, and goes into children developing independence because they have to, in the absence of their parents" then you are adding something that was simply not in the article anywhere at all. You simply made it up. So when you claim "That’s what free-range parenting is” - you are giving your own definition that is neither in the article nor tracks with anything in the article. It is entirely your own definition based on your own imagination.

Which is exactly what my post was about. The outsider judges based solely on something they see (or in this case read) and simply extrapolates the rest out of nowhere. Way to make my point for me :) There is no "positive spin on child neglect" anywhere in that article. You've entirely invented that. The "absence of the parents" is observed in one context (say a child walking to school alone or coming home to what is at first an empty house for a period of time) - and the concept of "neglect" is entirely extrapolated out of that baselessly. That was exactly the point of my post. The baseless extrapolation.

Even the phrase "free range" is informative in a way you appear to have missed. For example when we talk of "Free range chickens" we are not talking about chickens that have merely been kicked out into the open country side to fend entirely to themselves. Rather - they have been given freedom within set confines where much effort, work and thought has been put into their protection, safety, well being and development. "Free range" for them - much like the children in places like Norway - exist within a structure. A structure that is the opposite of the "neglect" of your fantasies. It is freedom within confines pursued to maximise safety.

On a side note - a lot of this is not limited to Norway either. Children are walking to school by themselves very young (6-7) in places like Germany too for example. There are derogatory terms for parents who do not engage with this - it is considered something akin to a "right" for kids there to do so and part of their development. To the point some school head masters will discuss it with the parents if they are not doing it.

They even have specific aspects in law related to this such as if a child causes damage in traffic on the way to school they are not considered liable up to a certain age. So if a child loses control of a scooter on the way to school and it flies out into the road and gets tangled up under an oncoming top class Audi causing a lot of damage - the child and their parents are often entirely absolved of "Haftung" (accountability) in this case.

Which - I am reliably informed - some drivers are not aware of and they go into quite a flap when they try to get the parents to cough up compensation directly, or through their insurance, to pay for the damage to the car and they get nothing and have to either risk their own no claims bonus, or pay for it out of their own pocket.

esker72

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122621341#Comment_122621341

She'll go to her friends house up the road but that's pretty much it. I'd have a more relaxed view than mammy on things but not about to be the one that takes a chance. And to be fair I'd say that is a factor in a lot of this. From the early stages of parenthood there's a bit of pressure to not be the parent that lets bad stuff happen to the kids :)

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122621696#Comment_122621696

I think that is one of the reasons good communication and a united front on parenting is important to me. It means that where possible, all decisions we make are unanimous and decided. Meaning that if anything "bad" ever does happen - no parent is made to feel like it was their fault or their failing. I can think of few (if any) things that may or could happen where I would feel like pointing the finger or assigning blame would be at all the right way to go. We the parents are all in this together in our house. And we sink or swim as a unit.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122621696#Comment_122621696

That's kind of where I'd disagree (full disclaimer - NOT a parent!) but I'm coming at this from a child perspective who grew up with an over-protective parent who refused to let me play anywhere out of sigh on the road (about 50 yards either side) until about 10. At that age, I rebelled because I was the only kid on the street with these limitations and it was either stand up and fight or spend the next 4-5 years of my life being excluded from pretty much everything my friends were doing.

It caused plenty of arguments but I still look back on it as one of the most important decisions I made as a kid because the consequences of not doing so would have caused more damage to my social development.

I was, however a step parent once, and the rule in that family was that they could go further as long as they were with someone else and not alone.

JupiterKid

I think it's great - within reason and with some clear boundaries, obviously.

I had a part-time summer job at 14, as did my two older sisters at that age onwards.

We had a pretty comfortable, middle class upbringing in 1980s suburban Dublin but our dad (a self-made man who had an incredible work ethic and came from very little) believed that if we worked to earn money for things that we wanted on top of our modest pocket money, we would value it all the more. He was right.

After my mum died tragically and suddenly when I was 15, I lived in our family home on my own five days a week (my dad worked up in Belfast and commuted each weekend and my two older sisters had moved out) with great support from neighbours and friends of the family, allowing me to stay in my school. It was my idea and I wanted to show everyone at the time that I could do it.

I grew up very fast during those last few years of school - getting myself up for school each morning, making my dinner and doing my own laundry. Fortunately I had the self-discipline to do it and prove the naysayers wrong. There's no way that would be allowed today.

Teenagers these days are very infantilised by paranoid parents from what I can see and it does them no good, IMO.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122621164#Comment_122621164

Well, that's one way of looking at it. 

That was kinda the point of the post CR, in response to PMs question about the prevalence of antisocial behaviour among the youth in Finland. I think both yourself and tax missed the point of the post in that I was making the point that every country has it’s own problems, and Finland is no exception.

While it might be wonderful for middle-class parents to extol the virtues of the way they have chosen to raise their own children, and for outside observers to regard their efforts with fascination, admiration and respect, the reality is that those parents are unlikely to ever have to consider the possibility of Norwegian Child Welfare Services acquiring their children while the child may be traversing from one end of Norway to the other unaccompanied because their parents are divorced. That is not the case for many parents in Norway whose children experience significant socioeconomic deprivation, no more than it is in Ireland or any other country:

https://www.humanium.org/en/unraveling-norways-barnevernet-examining-childrens-best-interests/

I very much doubt that parents explaining that they are ‘free-range parenting’ will excise their children from Norwegian Child Welfare Services any time soon either when they are suspected of neglecting their children.

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122622224#Comment_122622224

Not sure how I am meant to have missed that point given nothing in my posts was anything to do with either that point, or the post it was originally contained in. Once again - seeing what you want to see :) Everything I have written so far was referring to entirely different points within the thread.

Again my only point so far has been this: People observing parenting from the outside often see one attribute in isolation and - much like you did by seeing all kinds of things like "neglect" in the article that simply were not in the article at all - they extrapolate a whole parenting paradigm out of their tiny observation that is often quite false and baseless. They/you see what you want to see or preconceptions you have already brought along before hand.

Nothing whatsoeever to do with what problems kids in other countries do or do not have. So I "missing" nothing at all thanks.

Actually you quite made my point for me at the end of your reply to me by commenting on how "hands on" our parenting has been over the years. You have the benefit of knowledge due to having read my posts over the last decade plus. You know how hands on I am due to that - both in normal ways and some unusual and exceptional ways.

An outside observer without the access to that knowledge you have gleaned from this forum - were they to observe much about my children today - would get a very strong impression of hands off parenting and maybe even jump to the same ludicrous conclusions as you did related to the OPs article with words along the lines of "neglect" and similar.

And this is because of false extrapolation and filling in the blanks. They would not have seen the years of guidance, development, hands on parenting, incremental allocation of autonomy and responsibility and MUCH MUCH more that went into it.

The way your posts land for me is that you seem to think this phrase "Free range parenting" (which, I hasten to add, I would never use) is just a self-congratulatory synonym for "latchkey" parenting and laziness or neglect or something. I do not read the OPs article that way. And I suspect you are the only one who has. You seem to see them as essentially the same thing. I definitely do not. Nor does - for example - CeliticRambler when they write "all the negative aspects of the latchkey tradition with little or none of the positives of the free range lifestyle" which shows they also see them as distinct things with their own set of advantages and disadvantages. You seem to conflate the two and it brings you to read the OPs article and see all kinds of stuff in it that simply was not there in the text so you filled it in yourself with your own pre(mis)conceptions.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122622299#Comment_122622299

The way your posts land for me is that you seem to think this phrase "Free range parenting" (which, I hasten to add, I would never use) is just a self-congratulatory synonym for "latchkey" parenting and laziness or neglect or something. I do not read the OPs article that way. And I suspect you are the only one who has.

Well yes, that is actually a truer representation of what I actually said in my first post. What’s also true is that we both have observer bias, which is why we read the article differently, informed by our previous familiarity with the concept of “free-range parenting”. You don’t have to suspect that I’m the only person who has read it that way when other posters have posted indicating they read it the same way - the article posits the positive aspects of that particular form of raising children, whereas a broader understanding of the phenomenon reveals it’s negative aspects which, as I pointed out, is a perspective which one would be unlikely to read about in the Guardian.

CelticRambler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122622224#Comment_122622224

I very much doubt that parents explaining that they are ‘free-range parenting’ will excise their children from Norwegian Child Welfare Services any time soon either when they are suspected of neglecting their children.

You've gone off on a very strange tangent there, Jack. The linked article is almost entirely concerned with non-Norwegian immigrants not adapting to the culture in which they've found themselves. If we had more information available, I suspect we'd find that these parents had a whole lot of other problems too, mostly related to being in "the wrong place with the wrong set of values" and little to do with parenting.

To a certain extent, this is a similar situation to believing that a "Mediterranean Diet" will grant you a long and happy life … while still working a 40-hour week (plus commute) in Dublin. Cut out the sun and the two-hour lunch break and the weekends spent walking in the mountains and the diet part becomes a lot less relevant. It's the same with parenting: there's a hell of a lot more to what's described in the article than just having the children come home to an empty house. You can't pick and choose what bits you like and expect the same outcome; but you can choose to make decisions based on the real level of risk rather than imagined horrors hyped up by transatlantic marketing companies and news organisations desperate for clicks.

My biggest concern would be a car accident. Children's sense of danger isn't fully heightened. I suspect there are fewer cars in Norway at a given time, with cycling being more popular.

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122622396#Comment_122622396

I am not sure merely saying everyone has observer bias really covers it. While I am sure we all have our biases - mine led me to read the article only as it was written. Yours led you to bring pre(mis)conceptions of your own and go on about tangential stuff that is nowhere referenced or even implied ANYWHERE in the article.

Biases exist and we all have them. But not all biases are equal and not all biases make one see things that are patently not there anywhere in what is written in the article.

The simple fact is the article is about self sufficient kids who are given a lot of "free range" freedoms to try and fail on their own. Anything else about neglect or similar is not in the article and is just invented by yourself as you read it. There is simply nothing in the article to warrant even the smallest assumptions of things like neglect.

The point being none of us (myself included) know. We see an article about one or two attributes about how the kids are NOW. The article tells us nothing about how they got to that point - or how neglected they were or werent - or how hands on the parents were or weren't. One can either read the article that was written - or read an article in their own heads. I did the former. You appear to have done the latter.

As I said twice now - an outside observer could very easily and very quickly get the impression my kids are neglected and I have a very hands off blase approach to parenting. Especially if they have prior preconceptions on the subject. But as you yourself indicated - they would be very, very, wrong. But if they extrapolate to nonsense conclusions from things that are not there - their false conclusions would be very understandable all the same.

My 14 year old daugther reacently went on the train by herself to go off surfing in Sligo for example. If an adult on the train was talking to her and that was all she told them - they'd possibly leap to some very erroneous conclusions indeed about me as a parent and her life as a kid.

Like others on the thread I definitely see nothing to justify holding the position that "free range" parenting is just a positive spin synonym for "latch key" parenting or that the two are essentially the same thing.

CelticRambler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122622936#Comment_122622936

If you say that "Children's sense of danger isn't fully heightened" that implies that you believe that an adult's sense is. And yet if we look at the actual real-world statistics, we find that only 9% of pedestrian deaths across the EU are children and young adults (up to the age of 24); i.e. 91% of pedestrians being killed by cars are those who ought to have a better sense of danger. (2021 publication)

Furthermore, of all the children killed in road traffic accidents, 46% of them were inside the car (versus 32% walking and 13% cycling); and of all the children killed in road traffic accidents, 63% of them were killed during the working week (daytime) … or what we might infer as "going to/from school or periscolastic activities" (2022 publication)

So your concern is probably wholly and entirely misplaced.

It's been a while since I last trawled through the data, but the last time I did so, there was a very clear correlation between "protected" children suffering more numerous and more serious accidents, precisely because their immature sense of danger was/is suppressed by their parents/guardians removing minor risks from their daily lives. A sprain hurts, but heals faster than a broken bone; a grazed knee hurts, but heals faster than a crushed leg; a split lip hurts but heals faster than a fractured skull …