Cutting kids some slack Free-range Parenting PHENOMENON

In India, where there is a tradition of patriarchal, interfering parenting, free-range parenting has come like a fresh breath of air with a rising number of new millennial parents rebelling against anxiety-driven, risk-averse child rearing

- CYNTHIA JOHN, MINI P. & KHUSHBOO NEHAL JASHNANI

Which parenting style is the best? For new as well as experienced parents, the answer to this question has become more complex and confusing over time, especially in the disruptive Google age. In books, manuals, print and electronic media, Internet, social media and WhatsApp groups, there’s a flood of information and expert viewpoints on the pros and cons of differing parenting styles. Parents are being bombarded with advice on ideal parenting techniques to produce happy, confident and successful children. The most hotly debated are helicopter, authoritative, authoritarian, and free-range parenting.

Of them, free-range parenting — defined as “raising children in the spirit of encouraging them to function independently and with limited parental supervision” — has been attracting disproportionate public attention recently because of media reports of a spate of law suits filed against parents practising this parenting style. In the US, parents have been charged with neglect and endangerment for permitting their children to engage in everyday activities — such as walking to school, bicycling in the streets, playing in the park — without adult supervision. This has provoked a backlash against official clamp down by free-range parenting proponents. In 2018, the American State of Utah passed the Free-Range Parenting Bill redefining “neglect” to exclude allowing children “of sufficient age and maturity” to walk or bike to school, engage in outdoor play, remain home unattended, or “engage in similar independent activity.”