sledding and supervision
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Anonymous
| So all the neighborhood kids have been having a blast together with sledding. DS is in 4th grade and incredibly impulsive and anxious. I am the only parent there while the other kids are there on their own. I am constantly concerned that DS will start acting out and therefore don't want him to leave him alone w/o parent. Anyone else feel this way--and concerned we are helicoptering? |
Anonymous
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I think it depends what "acting out" is like for your kid. If it involves behaviors that other kids are unlikely to be able to manage on their own, then I think it's appropriate for you to be there. I think it only becomes helicoptering if you are constantly assisting/interrupting when no one needs you to do that. Like if you think he might hit someone, you should be there. If you think he's going to cut in front of kids and maybe yell a little, the other kids, especially if there are some there his age, can probably handle it.
FWIW, my kid is older, but at that age I would have been nearby just because of his anxiety and lack of assertiveness. He's not a kid who acts out but he is vulnerable and I wouldn't necessarily trust other kids to be kind. But I always worked hard to ignore things that didn't need my input and spent a lot of time pretending to be engaged in my phone. |
Anonymous
| Yes I feel similarly, but fwiw I think 4th graders should be supervised while sledding. But in general I have a great deal of anxiety leaving him alone. Last season I finally got OK with carpooling to his sport so I didnt attend every practice, and it was OK! It was a good first step to realize he might be alright with more independence. |
Anonymous
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Is your child anxious or are you projecting your anxiety?
It's hard to stay whether you're acting rationally, OP. A lot of people on Dcum are ridiculously overprotective, with correspondingly skewed views on how risky certain behaviors are. But some kids really do need supervision. Mine is a huge elopement risk, for instance. And can play very rough with others because he doesn't process feelings of pain in a neurotypical way. |
Anonymous
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I don't think you're helicoptering if you're providing the level of supervision that your son needs. Just say in the background as much as possible so you are in an "as needed" role.
I personally think an adult should be somewhere nearby anyways when 9 year olds are hurdling themselves down an icy hill, in case of an injury. We have had 2 broken bones from sledding in our immediate family. |
Anonymous
| You know your kid best, OP. Listen to your instincts. I think it’s smart to have at least one adult around whenever kids are sledding because stuff can and does happen. |
Anonymous
| I have a 4th grader and while parents and kids were not sledding this week in a 1:1 adult to child ratio, the 4th and 5th graders I saw were supervised. I took 3 kids one day. My husband was watching over 5 kids another day. I saw plenty of parents I know at the top of the hill. I did see middle schoolers alone. |
Anonymous
| 4th graders should be supervised |
Anonymous
I think it also depends where they are sledding. Kids in my HOA go sledding down a small hill, and there most are unsupervised after the age of 8 or 9. But if we were to head to the larger hill near the local high School, which is bigger and more crowded, and further from home, then they tend to be supervised up until middle school or so. |
Anonymous
| It's not helicoptering if your kid has SN that require it and that age they all should be supervised. The obnoxious parent is the kid who has those issues and they just send him/her off and hope for the best without even scaffolding or gradually reducing supervision. |
Anonymous
| I think it’s fine. Just give them enough space to have fun. I helicoptered my impulsive kid until well into 5th grade. |
Anonymous
| Unless you think they could sled into a tree or street, what harm can they do? |
Anonymous
This is my answer. Most (not all) of my friends who are parents of NT kids would still feel the need to attend because of the parents anxiety. If I had a NT kid, I would not. I think kids need freedom. But my SN kid is rough and disregards signaling from others, so in 4th grade very much needed oversight or he could have hurt others or otherwise just otherwise would have been a target for the other kids. |
Anonymous
Yeah I think it is really hard to say op without us being there or knowing more. Some kids with ADHD do need more supervision and if you are worried he would truly hurt another kid than it might be warranted, but generally research is showing we are supervising WAY too much and it does our kids a great disservice. Kids truly need unsupervised, unstructured play to learn executive function skills. ADHD Dude (who is a LCSW therapist) talks a lot about this. The Self Driven child (authors have seen a zillion kids) talk about this, the most recent book I read that talked about this was Raising A Kid Who Can (loved this and it talks a lot about ways to figure out whether it is your anxiety, your kids etc., and how to build these skills. Highly recommend! Might be a helpful way to assess if you are overdoing it a little based on your own anxiety) So, I think you're going to get a lot of responses that it is appropriate but generally I think it is because our line for what we think is best but might not actually be has shifted in ways that hasn't actually been helpful to kids. |
Anonymous
| Sorry that last sentence didn't make sense, I combined two thoughts into one. Meant that our line for what we think is needed has shifted in ways that are not necessarily on target or what really benefits kids |