Cycle One: The Culture of Childhood

As a kid, I loved camp.  Our church growing up had a camp site on Wixom Lake near Beaverton and I can vividly recall two very different experiences there.  Out on the water, past the point where it goes over your head but where the seaweed just tickles your toes, is a wooden diving platform, sometimes covered in seagull… well you know.  In my late middle school years (so maybe I was 12 or 13) I volunteered to be a counselor and help supervise elementary aged campers.  During swim time, I would run through the shallow sandbar and dive into the water headed for the diving platform.  Once there, it didn't take long for it to be surrounded by 8 and 9 year olds.  Being the youthful adolescent that I was, I remember taking the campers and throwing them off the platform watching them splash into the water.  When they came back up, breaking the water's surface, they were laughing and would energetically swim back to the ladder to repeat the process.  During the summer before my senior year of high school (so I was 17), I organized a camp for economically disadvantage kids (3^rd - 5^th graders) at the same campsite.  When it came time for swimming, my friends, who I had gotten to help volunteer as counselors, rushed through the shallow water and headed right for the diving platform.  My insides unexpectedly began to tighten.  Confused at my body's response, I ignored it and proceeded to watch the campers follow the counselors out to the platform.  My pulse began to quicken.  Alarmed at my physiological state, I took a few deep breaths.  As I was breathing in, I witnessed one of the counselors throw a camper off the platform and into the water.  My breathing stopped.  Automatically I shouted, "Nope!  No throwing anybody off that guys… someone is going to get hurt."  Startled at my response, I explicitly remember questioning what I had just done.  An inner debate began to fester inside my mind.  "But you did the same thing as a counselor and it was awesome," I said to myself.  "I know… but I am responsible this week.  What if one of those kids gets really hurt or what if a parent tries to sue me?"  I argued back.  "Is this what being a parent feels like then?  True responsibility?  This feels awful."  I concluded.  "But wait, you were prepared for this.  You have red-cross certified lifeguards right over there.  You have a medically trained ER doctor right over there."  I questioned.  "I know… but is it worth the risk?"

My camp experiences mirror the dramatic shift that has unmistakably occurred in our society as a whole.  The 1950s parenting style of "be home before dark," compared to "no… you can't go over there honey...  Jamie's mom doesn't buy organic," is striking.  Certainly when labeled with these over generalized examples, the nostalgia for what was certainly plays to a greater audience.  However, I have to question it.  I am not arguing for the rigidly scheduled, creatively constrictive, and overly monitored childhood that is visible today, but do we really want to go back to uninvolved, absent, parents who don’t know where their child is going or what they are doing?  Shouldn't we value a parent who is actively involved in their kid's experiences and helping to guide them through critical thinking and thoughtful reflection?  It also stands to to assess these different styles of parenting by the adults that they produce.  True, this is unfair as this current generation is still in childhood, but did the children of the 1950s turn out that great?   

I agree that there is a case to be made that we do need to pause and step back from the direction that we are moving in.  The overwhelming research presented about the value of free play or even "risky play" helps to justify giving kids more autonomy.  A parallel can be drawn to the classroom - that many times as educators, we just need to get out of the way.  I draw on numerous classroom discussions that my students and I have had about various topics.  More often than not, a classroom discussion is directed by who?  The teacher.  But why?  Yes, we have our desired learning goals and standards to meet, but more often than not, it is because we are afraid that unless we control the conversation, things are going to get out of control.  In my experience, this fear couldn't be more unsubstantiated.  In fact, it is when I give the discussion over to the students that they are able to engage with one another more effectively, are more willing to share, provide deeper insights, and make stronger connections to the content. 

Still, I question how advancing an agenda towards child autonomy is even societally feasible when everyone from the mailman to your waiter has an opinion on how you should be raising your child.  We live in a world that instead of empathizing with the trauma experienced by a mother whose child fell into a gorilla enclosure, we blame her as unfit and demand that CPS take that child away.  Yet, what kid doesn't have an "I was lost in the store" story?  I can easily remember hiding in the circular clothing racks of Target, or looking up from the PlayStation stand and play console at Best Buy and not seeing my mom next to me anymore because she said we were leaving 3 minutes ago. 

Clearly balance is needed and any extreme can have negative impacts on a child's growth and development.  I still struggle to know what that balance looks like, but recognizing that there isn't a simple answer, or that a gray area exists, is helpful when making conscious and reflective-based decisions as a teacher, and possibly someday in the future as a father.