[One Degree]

Ultimately VS, what your child becomes when they reach adulthood is testament to their upbringing. I suspect children with parent guidance and some freedoms will be more socially functional when they reach adulthood than those who are taught to learn for themselves. But I don't have stats on that so I can only go with something I do know. Single parent families have more discipline issued children then those of two parent families. If parent guidance wasn't an factor, why does that happen?

Most of these theories insinuate it is what you say and do to the child that matters. It is not. Your child learns from observing what you actually do. Single parent family means female parent. The non existence of the male role model is the problem. There is no one to observe.

[B0ycey]

So how can a child observe when both parents are not around as they are left on their own to figure things out?

Everything in moderation surely?

[Victoribus Spolia]

Ultimately VS, what your child becomes when they reach adulthood is testament to their upbringing. I suspect children with parent guidance and some freedoms will be more socially functional when they reach adulthood than those who are taught to learn for themselves. But I don't have stats on that so I can only go with something I do know. Single parent families have more discipline issued children then those of two parent families. If parent guidance wasn't an factor, why does that happen?

Well, if Free-Rangers were advocating for border-line abandonment I suppose you would have a point

In reality I strike the balance that my grandparents and great grand-parents did.

When I am home, and schooling is not on the agenda, I want my kids outside. I want them out of my hair. I want them climbing trees, riding bikes with friends, shooting small animals with sling-shots, playing hide and seek, getting dirty, fighting the neighborhood bully.....I am totally satisfied with them coming back dirty with a fat lips, scratches, scrapped knees and a jar full of bugs and small amphibians. I am very loose with them in this regards, and I also let them play inside with video games, movies, etc., if they have their work done and the weather is crappy.

In Contrast, when we go out in public or have company, I expect them to be well dressed, obedient instantly on command, well-mannered, and well-spoken and I enforce this strictly.

My kids only get their asses whooped for the "five Ds"

1. Disobedience. (disobeying direct command or breaking a known family rule, including Biblical law)
2. Dishonesty. (lying to me directly or bearing false witness)
3. Disrespect. (back-talking or things of that ilk)
4. Destruction. (destroying my property, the property of others, or maliciously destroying their siblings toys)
5. Danger. (doing something that seriously endagers their own lives....like playing a game by teasing rattlesnake or something stupid like that)

Likewise, my kids have to work and this is also very important. If I am working on a project, the boys must be out trying to help and my wife and I have not had to carry or put-away groceries, wash dishes, or do laundry for a couple of years and my oldest is turning 9 this year. They also tend to the dog, chickens and other odd jobs. This is very important. Kids, even if they do a crappy job at first, ought to be made to work and help as early as possible. I have found that they soon fall in love with their jobs and are lost without them.

This balance is having the intended results so far, and it follows pretty closely the old model I intentionally recovered from several generations before my own.

My parenting is traditional, but includes free-range. If my wife is out and about, she should be able to run into the gas station and leave the kid in the car. My 9 year old should be able to walk the 1/2 mile to my parents house without issue, and when he turns 10 or 11 he should be able to run the 1/4 mile to the little diner to pick-up an order I called in, and as soon as he hits 13, I don't think there should be any issue with him watching some of his siblings while we run to get some groceries. Especially in the age of cell phones.

[One Degree]

So how can a child observe when both parents are not around as they are left on their own to figure things out?

Everything in moderation surely?

The amount of time spent with the child is not as important as what else you are doing with that time. You can spend time everyday telling a child how important reading is, but if the child has never seen you spend time reading instead of playing with them, then they will conclude reading is not important. If it were, my parent would spend their time doing it. The same with most life lessons. How do they see you handling it? A parent with very little time for their children can still be a great parent because the child is learning from watching you.
Edit: The time spent observing does not have to be hours per day, so the child being absent is not a conflict. Moments spread over years will work.

[B0ycey]

I think those things are fair VS. Especially as you live in a rural community. Letting a nine year old to walk 1/2 mile in a city wouldn't be something I would agree with for my children though.

[Victoribus Spolia]

I think those things are fair VS

Thank you sir.

Letting a nine year old to walk 1/2 mile in a city wouldn't be something I would agree with for my children though

Well, when I lived in the city I lived in the hood, so I wasn't keen on them going far either only because the little black kids were very tribal about their in-group and i didn't want them going in and out of their homes which were filthy....I didn't want my 6 year stepping on a heroin needle in some brutha's crib.

If it was a neighborhood that was cleaner with people of shared ethno-cultural heritage, it would've been different and the old folks who were still there who's families had built that little neighborhood recalled it being different with everyone looking out for each others kids like how Rancid described.

In fact, the majority black neighborhood I lived in, one thing I can say about it, was that the kids could go entirely unsupervised and they cared for their own in that regard. It was not unusual to see kids in diapers on the streets being watched by 7 and 8 year olds. Not at all.

When it was all white, it might have been like that too. However, the white families in that neighborhood basically locked-down their homes and were almost never seen outside, especially at night. Our homes were like little fortresses

Some of that I had to learn the hard way.

That is besides the fact, like you said, that 1/2 mile in the city and 1/2 mile in the sticks are completely different. Where I am from, if it 15 miles away, it should take you 15 minutes to get there on average. Yeah.....that rule didn't apply in the city. I remember finding a grocery store on my GPS when we first moved there and my wife and I were like: "only 6 miles, that is SOOO close."

It was on the other side of the city and took us like 45 minutes.... lesson learned.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

The only problem here is that a free range parenting law is necessary. I'm also somewhat taken aback that letting kids walk to school alone can lead to charges of neglect (if the article in the OP is correct) - that's surely crazy on the face of it.

I suspect this is one of the many cases where we are up against the blank slate and the law catering to the lowest common denominator, i.e. the dysfunctional who pass on their dysfunctional traits to some extent to their offspring but we attribute this exclusively to their parenting and environmental influences. Obviously, this is also true for the opposite in that people whose kids turn out well and successful tend to attribute it to their good parenting.

Also relevant here is the counter-intuitive finding that parenting seems to matter little for children's life outcomes. See this article for an overview.

From the article (quoted from the book The Nurture Assumption):

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth
To hear your child make such a fuss.
It isn’t fair—it’s not the truth—
He’s fucked up, yes, but not by us.

[Godstud]

Other
it shouldn't be legally protected, but I don't think any form of parenting should be legally protected.

I am very pro-"Free-Range Parenting", however. I try to practice it.

[Missus V. Spolia.]

How about we just ban government from telling us what to do altogether?

[Rancid]

How about we just ban government from telling us what to do altogether?

It would be chaos actually. Many people would do incredibly stupid shit if there wasn't at least a minimal set of laws/standards expected from people. In other words, some people really do need to be told what to do.

[Missus V. Spolia.]

Nah. People are pussies and being stupid to each other quickly subsides if it will lead to someone shooting you on the spot.

All the crazy looting that we imagine is almost always temporary after a sudden collapse, it never lasts long.

[Rancid]

I think the ship has sailed on that idea.

[Missus V. Spolia.]

Things are bound to collapse. They always do.

Just buy a gun and build a root cellar, you'll be just fine.

[Hong Wu]

A long time ago my father decided we were going to live in Compton, a gang-infested part of Los Angeles, because the rent was cheap.

He bought me a bike. I chained it up by the front tire but when I came back, everything but the front tire was gone.

I brought the tire home with me and explained what happened. He bought me a second bike. I chained it up by the body. When I came back, the body was still there but both tires were gone.

I convinced him to buy me a third bike and a really, really long bike chain. I chained the bike up through both tires and the body. When I came back, someone who had been unable to steal any significant part of the bike had badly smashed it up with some kind of object, maybe a large wrench, I have no idea.

In hindsight I'm probably lucky I didn't get physically attacked while we lived there.