our kids are good kids
Every once and a while someone responds with alarm when Lijah walks out through the library doors without me. I try to respond appropriately for the situation so they don't call social services, but honestly? He mostly just likes pushing the button for the automatic door opener. He's not going anywhere—and he has plenty of good sense not jump off the 20-foot-wide expanse of sidewalk into the sparse traffic of the library parking lot, if that's what they're worried about.
Not all parents are so sanguine. A while ago I saw a mom with an elementary-age girl and a four- or five-year-old boy tell the boy, who had drifted maybe 10 feet from her as she and the daughter checked out books, "you're getting too far away!" And this evening a dad checking out at the same time as us had to momentarily abandon the desk to chase down his three-year-old, who was headed out the door.
They're our library friends, so I know that he has to deal with some questionable listening and occasional wandering from his two kids—maybe it was understandable that he wanted to hold them both tightly as they walked down the path to where their car was parked. That my own three kids had left before I finished checking out so they could get started reading their new books in the car probably wasn't the best example we could have set. His girl pointed out the disparity and he answered her, "that's because they're good kids".
I don't know about that, but I did appreciate that when I got to the car they were all in their seats and the two that can buckle themselves were buckled (books are a strong motivator in our family). I have to wonder, though, which came first: the good behavior, or the freedom to make good choices? Are some kids so crazy from their first moments that parents have no alternative but to constantly constrain them? I can easily imagine that being the case.
Our own boys each spent the first four years of their life unable to leave our side, so we didn't have to worry about telling them not to do dangerous things. I think that helped. And I think parents can even overcome their kids' foolhardy toddler-hood to give them independence as preschoolers, at least in the right environment; I'm pretty sure Jo and Eugene did just that with their oldest. But it does call for a certain amount of trust—both in your kids, and in the people around you not to freak out too much. It's probably worth it, though. After all, all kids should be able to be good kids.
comments
thanks for the encouragement Dan! It helps that we don't really have to worry about child services unless we do something really bad. We'll have to watch out when we're in Cambridge. I do find it frustrating when things are set up with the assumption that kids are out to do something bad— today they had so many signs at the local bird sanctuary about kids straying from parents.