<story><title>Free-range parenting outside the US</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/reader-center/free-range-parenting-outside-united-states.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ericdykstra</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s easy to tell people to &amp;quot;chill&amp;quot; when you live in a high trust society like Tokyo (where I&amp;#x27;ve called home for over 3 years; I can&amp;#x27;t speak for the other cities mentioned).&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve not once feared for my own safety. Children as young as ~5 or 6 walk on my street alone or in small groups regularly, and they, likewise, have no reason to fear. There&amp;#x27;s even a culture of teaching your kid at a very young age to do things on their own. A regular TV show documents it (link with English sub: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dailymotion.com&amp;#x2F;video&amp;#x2F;x4lme5a&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dailymotion.com&amp;#x2F;video&amp;#x2F;x4lme5a&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;p&gt;I spent 3 and a half years in San Francisco, and the difference is stark. People riding the bus grab their phones hard with one hand while using it with the other, for fear of it being stolen (as happened to a friend of mine). You would never leave your phone on a table while going to the bathroom unless you were with someone to watch it. If you lost your wallet, you&amp;#x27;d be lucky if you got your driver&amp;#x27;s license back in the mail.&lt;p&gt;Are American parents overbearing as a group? Likely. But it&amp;#x27;s easy to criticize from afar if you&amp;#x27;ve never lived in a low-trust society.</text></comment>
<story><title>Free-range parenting outside the US</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/reader-center/free-range-parenting-outside-united-states.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>doppel</author><text>In Denmark, and probably elsewhere, we have the term &amp;quot;helicopter parents&amp;quot; for parents who constantly hover near their kids, never letting them out of sight. Similarly, we also have the term &amp;quot;curling parents&amp;quot;, because they do everything to clear the path of their offspring (to the point of going to job interviews with them).&lt;p&gt;Both are obviously used in a teasing-not-quite-nice way to signal that maybe these parents should take a deep breath and assume that they raised their kids well, and that scraping your knee or getting frightened is something that happens in life sooner or later, and the parents&amp;#x27; job is to guide and comfort their kids when they do happen.&lt;p&gt;There was a very high profile case (in DK at least) from 1997 about a mother who left her child outside the restaurant where she was eating (with line-of-sight to the stroller): &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;us-news&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;nov&amp;#x2F;26&amp;#x2F;anette-sorenson-denmark-new-york-baby-left-outside&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;us-news&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;nov&amp;#x2F;26&amp;#x2F;anette-soren...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I might not want to do the same in New York, but in Denmark no one would bat an eye if this happened.</text></comment>