NPR: To Raise Confident, Independent Kids, Some Parents Are Trying To "Let Grow"

From age eight if not earlier, I walked several blocks to and from school every day by myself. This was normal at the time and nothing untoward ever happened.

It's been calculated that if you wanted your child to be abducted you'd have, on average, to leave them alone on the street for 750,000 years (as cited by Steven Pinker in his book _The Better Angels of Our Nature_).

On one occasion when I was ten, a man offered to give me a ride in his car. My mother had told me not to talk to strangers because they might want to abduct me. Knowing how to parse logic, I ignored the part about not talking to him and simply declined the ride. I never saw him again.

This research also supports the understanding that overprotective parenting is bad for kids: https://www.anxiety.org/protective-parenting-anxiety-children

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/03/641256596/to-raise-confident-independent-kids-some-parents-are-trying-to-let-grow?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social