GOING HOME ALONE...

We all crave independence and hold tightly to it once we have it. As soon as a child can string words together you’ll hear “I can do it myself.” Next they want the training wheels off their bicycle, they want to drive the car, make their own money, live on their own and hopefully pay their own bills. An elderly person who no longer should drive will cling tightly not just to the car keys but to the independent life that it represents.

Lenore Skenazy’s 9-year-old son wanted to prove that he could get home from downtown Manhattan. Skenazy, a columnist for The New York Sun, writes in a recent column that she left her son at Bloomingdale’s in Manhattan to find his way home. Shenazy gave him $20, a subway map and a Metrocard for the subway. He made it home safely and was thrilled at his accomplishment.

I was always aware that my kids loved independence but I was overly cautious. Even at a young age my middle child would always lag behind because it was some kind of adventure to him. It always scared me and I was constantly telling him to hurry. I wouldn’t let my daughter walk one block to school because “something might happen.”

So…I don’t think that I could do what Skenazy did no matter how much my child begged. How do you handle your child's thirst for independence?