The gang, (8 y.o. No. One, six y.o. No. Two, and four y.o. No. Three), my partner, and got to go to a music festival this weekend. We saw James and the Psychedelic Furs, and it was soooo easy! We arrived about 10:30 in the morning to get a good seat. The kids were with us, we’d be there till about 5 PM. The music was scheduled to start about 2:30. We brought a ton of food because the kids and I travel on our stomachs, and wait for it, one activity.
The single activity was a card game that involves the players throwing foam burritos at each other. The kids played one game of it with their friends. The rest of the day, they blissfully (for me), and independently occupied themselves with exploring the festival.
My partner and I didn’t have to mess with any of this. She got to paint with watercolors for a while, and read. I got to write for a bit. We got to catch up with our friend, (the parent of the other two kids), and with each other. (Imagine it! Thanks to the kids being out on their own. We got to just lay on a blanket at a festival and talk!)
The kids roved around with or without their two other friends, (mostly without). The festival was arranged in two groves of a large, forested park. One grove housed the main stage, (that's where our blanket was). The other housed the food trucks and the festival’s ‘kids activities’. (I heard back that the kids’ activities were fairly lackluster.) The gang wound their way through the crowd from grove to grove. They explored. They observed people. They wandered back for food from time to time, or to snuggle on the blanket with my partner and I until they got wiggly again, then they were back off and running. They took themselves to the bathrooms that were located outside the festival gates. They got their hands stamped on the way in, so they were free to come and go as they pleased.
As the festival started to wind down, it was time to pack up and go. By now, we were hemmed in by blankets on all sides. Were we worried the kids were going to get in the way? Nope! When we decided we were going to head out, we just sent them to the playground adjacent to the forest and about 300 meters away. Delighted to do it, they took off on their own once again. We leisurely tossed all the stuff back in the carry sacks it came in. We scanned the area to make sure we hadn’t forgotten anything. The kids didn’t distract us because, well, they weren’t there.
A nice person walked over from the blanket next door. She said she’d been watching us all day and really enjoyed the kids. She liked that that we had told the three girls to just throw something on that morning so we could get going. We informed her that the middle kid was boy, but no big. We didn’t tell her that the kids had dressed themselves just like they did every morning, and it was super-convenient because they got to choose their own clothes. She mentioned that it was ummm interesting that they got so much freedom, but that they handled it really well, and it was very nice to watch them come and go enjoying themselves.
We got to have this whole nice conversation without worrying about the gang being underfoot because they weren’t. We said our farewells and headed out. At which point, I realized I wasn’t really clear on where the playground was.
My partner suggested the upwards path, so off we went. After a few tense moment, (for me), sure enough, there was the playground, and the gang was having a blast! We picked them up as we walked by, headed to the bus stop, and back to the house.
Through all of this, we only had one rule I had to remind the gang of, ‘all three of you stick together’. Even when they did separate for a bit, they nonchalantly found their ways back to our blanket. I was pretty good OK with that, because the rule wasn’t really to keep them safe from danger, it was to keep them safe from well-wishers who thought they’d spotted ‘a child by themselves.’
How’d it all happen? It just took two things really. Practice, and the opportunity to practice. The gang is out and about all the time. They take their dog to a park twice a day all on their own. They do part of our market and Farmers’ Market shopping without me, or anyone else. They’re used to being out in the world on their own. They know what to watch out for, and how to handle themselves. In all their practice, they’ve even had to deal with a fair number of ‘concerned’ adults. They’ve learned how to talk to them, how to dispel their fears, and how to simply move on to somewhere else if they can’t.
They were able to zero-in on the playground even though I was a little unsure of where it was, because they’d been there many, many times on homeschooling playground days. That’s part of the opportunity to practice that I mentioned. They have the time to explore town. They have the time to acclimate themselves to the world outside of schools. The festival was pretty much just more of the same for them. Sure, there were more people than usual at that particular location, but no more people than there typically are in downtown San Francisco, another one of their frequent hangouts.
So, if you’re so inclined, give your kids more freedom as you feel they can handle it. With practice, they’ll be happy doing more and more, and your life will get easier and easier. Everybody winds up better off!
The single activity was a card game that involves the players throwing foam burritos at each other. The kids played one game of it with their friends. The rest of the day, they blissfully (for me), and independently occupied themselves with exploring the festival.
My partner and I didn’t have to mess with any of this. She got to paint with watercolors for a while, and read. I got to write for a bit. We got to catch up with our friend, (the parent of the other two kids), and with each other. (Imagine it! Thanks to the kids being out on their own. We got to just lay on a blanket at a festival and talk!)
The kids roved around with or without their two other friends, (mostly without). The festival was arranged in two groves of a large, forested park. One grove housed the main stage, (that's where our blanket was). The other housed the food trucks and the festival’s ‘kids activities’. (I heard back that the kids’ activities were fairly lackluster.) The gang wound their way through the crowd from grove to grove. They explored. They observed people. They wandered back for food from time to time, or to snuggle on the blanket with my partner and I until they got wiggly again, then they were back off and running. They took themselves to the bathrooms that were located outside the festival gates. They got their hands stamped on the way in, so they were free to come and go as they pleased.
As the festival started to wind down, it was time to pack up and go. By now, we were hemmed in by blankets on all sides. Were we worried the kids were going to get in the way? Nope! When we decided we were going to head out, we just sent them to the playground adjacent to the forest and about 300 meters away. Delighted to do it, they took off on their own once again. We leisurely tossed all the stuff back in the carry sacks it came in. We scanned the area to make sure we hadn’t forgotten anything. The kids didn’t distract us because, well, they weren’t there.
A nice person walked over from the blanket next door. She said she’d been watching us all day and really enjoyed the kids. She liked that that we had told the three girls to just throw something on that morning so we could get going. We informed her that the middle kid was boy, but no big. We didn’t tell her that the kids had dressed themselves just like they did every morning, and it was super-convenient because they got to choose their own clothes. She mentioned that it was ummm interesting that they got so much freedom, but that they handled it really well, and it was very nice to watch them come and go enjoying themselves.
We got to have this whole nice conversation without worrying about the gang being underfoot because they weren’t. We said our farewells and headed out. At which point, I realized I wasn’t really clear on where the playground was.
My partner suggested the upwards path, so off we went. After a few tense moment, (for me), sure enough, there was the playground, and the gang was having a blast! We picked them up as we walked by, headed to the bus stop, and back to the house.
Through all of this, we only had one rule I had to remind the gang of, ‘all three of you stick together’. Even when they did separate for a bit, they nonchalantly found their ways back to our blanket. I was pretty good OK with that, because the rule wasn’t really to keep them safe from danger, it was to keep them safe from well-wishers who thought they’d spotted ‘a child by themselves.’
How’d it all happen? It just took two things really. Practice, and the opportunity to practice. The gang is out and about all the time. They take their dog to a park twice a day all on their own. They do part of our market and Farmers’ Market shopping without me, or anyone else. They’re used to being out in the world on their own. They know what to watch out for, and how to handle themselves. In all their practice, they’ve even had to deal with a fair number of ‘concerned’ adults. They’ve learned how to talk to them, how to dispel their fears, and how to simply move on to somewhere else if they can’t.
They were able to zero-in on the playground even though I was a little unsure of where it was, because they’d been there many, many times on homeschooling playground days. That’s part of the opportunity to practice that I mentioned. They have the time to explore town. They have the time to acclimate themselves to the world outside of schools. The festival was pretty much just more of the same for them. Sure, there were more people than usual at that particular location, but no more people than there typically are in downtown San Francisco, another one of their frequent hangouts.
So, if you’re so inclined, give your kids more freedom as you feel they can handle it. With practice, they’ll be happy doing more and more, and your life will get easier and easier. Everybody winds up better off!
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