Are you (or were your parents) (or would you be) a free range parent or a helicopter parent, or somewhere in between?

I have been a “0” as a parent. I never objected to my kids going where they wanted, as long as I knew where they were. It was a dynamic tension between trusting them and letting them explore, while also being aware of safety.

I was treated pretty much the same way growing up in the sixties. When I was in second grade, I had to take the city bus across San Francisco to get to school. By the time I was in junior high, I was taking the train into the city for orthodontist appointments,and free to roam San Francisco at will until I met up with my dad for a ride home.

When my daughter was in fifth grade, I arranged for her to take the school bus from her elementary school across town to the middle school down the street. she would then walk home from the middle school at the same time as older kids. A couple of moms were aghast that I let her walk home alone; they would never allow their sons to be in the same circumstance. I thought they were overly fastidious.

I grew up a free ranging kid in the 60’s. So I’d give my score as a 3 on the scale. Back in the days where your parents, basically didn’t worry about you if you were gone for hours at a time. Hop on your bike and take off for miles, spend the day at the local park without worry, explore the fields and creeks and river trails or spend the day at the shopping mall.

I raised my daughter on a rather remote rural property and she was allowed to ride her bike a couple miles down the road to her best friends and play outside unsupervised too. I’d score her upbringing at a 2–3 as well though she was often around due to needing to be transported to most places and events by car.
She just didn’t have the options of city life like riding/walking to a mall or movie theater. I had zero fear of creepy child molesters or other criminal activity, the biggest risk for her was getting bitten by a rattlesnake or attacked by a mountain lion.

Obviously neither happened as she just turned 29 a couple weeks ago. haha
I think it’s sad that kids have to have their freedom curtailed in these times.

I was brought up free range, too. We would take off for hours and come back when it was dinner time or the street lights came on.
I am not a parent but I think I would be a helicopter parent due to the kind of shows I watch about serial killers, parents killing each other and their kids.

I like to think I am a 0 – doesn’t everyone think they are the happy medium? Ask my kids and you might get a different answer.

I was brought up free range but I think in those days it was more like blissful ignorance. Out of sight, out of mind!

I/we have/were/are a balance between the two, so yeah, a big fat zero here.
By the by…helicopters are awesome.

A slave master parent. I made you, so you will work in the coal mine as soon as I have pummeled you into being able to walk you little shit.

^ An entry in the diary of Hitler’s mum?

In the early 70’s when I was growing up, it was a different world. I would walk to school (first grade and up) and walk near and far to other neighborhoods. I grew up in an affluent area, right outside of New York city. It was a different era then. Now, a mother would get arrested for allowing her young elementary school aged child to walk around the way I did.

When I was a young tween, I used to take the train to New York city. Again, it was a different era.

With my daughter, I’m pretty cool and I’m not dictatorial but I don’t know if I’d let her do the things I did, for the very least because I’d get in trouble with Child Protective Services.

I was a free-range child. I’d head out for bicycle rides, walks downtown, or to find other kids to play, and nobody worried.

I’m not a parent. If I had children, I hope I’d raise them the same way. It makes me crazy to watch parents arrange playdates and then hover around, supervising every action and micromanaging how the kids play.

Playmates, not playdates!

So where are “Kevin’s” parents? Ha!

I tended to be on the 10 sides of both. I was a hawk more than a helicopter watching over my sons teachers and class work. For whatever reason I felt my son was not being treated fairly….(not favorably but fairly) I would ride those teachers like a bad step child. On the other side…I did interact a lot with my kids…gave them opportunities to explore and also to be on their own to make mistakes and solve problems again on their own. We would ignore as best we could cries for our help or to intervene knowing they would ultimately find a solution to their conflict dilemma on their own. Doing both meant a lot of hard work which made being a parent the hardest job I have ever had….but the most rewarding as they are fine young men today. Very proud of both.

I think @Coloma is right that the scale has ascended towards helicopter over the decades for many, and the scale means different things depending on the decade and of course the location and norms of place and time.

I can hardly believe how controlling, restricting, and limiting some of the attitudes have become like, compared to how it was for me growing up in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Most of the changes seem like terrible mistakes to me.

I’m not sure anyway what to make of the proposed scale. I think my parents were mostly very responsible and concerned, and would intervene strongly if they had to, but they very rarely had to, and so mostly did not. My dad was more allowing and less concerned and vigilant that my mom was, but both of them would intervene if there was a problem or concern, but there usually wasn’t much of any concern. There was a strong mutual trust & respect thing going on that mostly worked quite well. But even in contrast to their generation growing up, there had been increases in controls and limits placed on kids, in some ways, though of course even they remember some exceptions – kids who were tightly monitored and rulebound.

I’m not sure what maximum free range would be. I’d say my dad was maybe an 8 on the free range scale, and my mom more like a 6, where zero would be neutral and helicopter would be up to 10 in the opposite direction.

So far I’ve only been an unofficial step-father, and in that role I naturally followed the mother’s mode, and I’d say she was maybe a 7 free range. My tendency is to maybe be a 7.5, but again I think it’s pretty hard to know what any scale actually means.

I agree with my parents that all rules should have a reason. I think kids should have a right to privacy and freedom unless/until there’s a serious reason to intervene. I think it works much better at least with most of the kids I’ve known to develop a healthy allowing trust & respect and openness, as opposed to trying to monitor and control things. I realize there are times to be vigilant and intervene though, which would call for something else, but I think the best way to not need that is to only go there when needed.

If I had to guess I think I would be near the middle, but inch a little towards being overprotective, so I guess that’s maybe a 2 or 3.

Now, with cell phones, I think since we can easily know where kids are we are more apt to know. Back when I was a kid my parents barely had an idea where I was after school.

At the same time, I probably would be ok leaving my kid alone fairly young, assuming the child was how I was, and a fairly late curfew. I’d be one of the parents on the more trusting side probably, as long as my kids didn’t show signs of doing very risky behavior.

I also think I would try to be a little more regimented about school than my parents were.

I know I wouldn’t be a very strict parent, or an extreme helicopter parent, unless something forced me to be. Like if the kid had some out of control, mischievous, personality, I might have no choice. I’d have to try to control the situation as much as possible. Sounds exhausting and awful to me.

My parents are 9 on the helicopter side. I used to assume that it was a normal thing and think nothing of it until I grew up and had more interaction. Many people were surprised at how strict my parents are, as none of them has ever encountered sonething like that before. There is something about my parents’ overprotectiveness that goes a bit too far from the “normal” point. It can be because they care too much, but recently I’ve discovered that there is a deeper issue behind their behavior. They care too much for what people say, and my mentality doesn’t fit in what they consider “standards”. I just wish they were more open-minded to adjust their minset.

I don’t understand this free range parenting thing, but I was neither a helicopter parent nor a neglectful one.
I took good care of my kids. Got to know their friends and raised them in a manner where they made good choices most of the time.
They got more personal time as they aged and could be trusted to handle themselves responsibly. When they played outside of my supervision I made certain to know who they were with. I also made an effort to know the parents. Once they were teens of hight school age I trusted their judgement but I still insisted in knowing their friends.
My home became the hangout on the weekend. They were free to hang out at their friends homes but their friends preferred my home.
I guess to some people may think I was a helicopter parent but is it if the kids actually invite to watch anime with them or play video games. I didn’t always because of work or just busy cleaning up after them and their guest and feeding them all, but it was nice for all.
One thing I learned about teens. They actually enjoy spending time with adults and so do the little ones.

I suppose you could have called me a free range parent. We often lived in the country, and there weren’t enough people around for me to worry about bad things happening to them. By the time my kids were old enough to work they did so. My job was to get them to and from work. One was fortunate enough to have been given a car, and she kept it gassed up and paid the insurance on it. I really irritated my kids’ teachers because they expected me to be far more involved in their education than I was. But I always explained that they essentially were little adults. They functioned as adults, and managed their time and schoolwork very well. I always requested that they be allowed to be present during the pt conference, which really went over poorly.

<sigh> I honestly don’t know where I place myself on that scale. I am more free range than I am helicopter. I have always believed that it is my Job to raise my children to be kind and functional adults. A large part of that is allowing them ever increasing access to our community and teaching them how to handle certain situations.

The hardest thing to reconcile, for me, is the fact that I cannot protect them 100% of the time. It is my impulse to want to do that but I know that I would have to control them to a level that I am not comfortable with and that I know causes problems.

Instead I have fostered a relationship with my kids where they can come to me for anything. They can call me at any time. I will pick them up from anywhere. At times I have had to be there for them. My daughter, maddeningly, has been the focus of men grabbing at her. One old $%^ grabbed her butt on our transit system. She was vocal about it and other passengers came to her defense and marshalled that guy off the train. And just a month ago she was being cat called as she made her way to her car after work and two of the guys decided to grab her. She fought back and they let go. She came home in tears and we called the police.

Yeah, I wish I could protect her but I know all I can do is be here for her.