On Monday, Leiby Kletzky, 8, disappeared from his Brooklyn neighborhood while walking a few blocks from day camp to meet his mother. Wednesday morning, his remains were discovered in a refrigerator in a nearby apartment.
Police commissioner Ray Kelly called the incident “every parent’s worst nightmare” and it is leading parents, both in the city and elsewhere, to question their children’s safety.
The tragedy brings up a perennial Juggle question: When do you let your kids navigate city or suburban streets on their own? Many working parents can’t always make school or camp pickup, relying on child-care providers to help out. At a certain age, though, some parents allow their kids to get from school to their next destination on their own. The question is: When?
We’ve previously discussed the concept of “free-range kids,” which entails allowing children to be more independent, popularized by writer Lenore Skenazy, who argues that parents’ fear of predators is often overblown. But horrific incidents like this one do give parents pause.
Clearly from a parent’s perspective, a balance needs to be struck. On one hand, children must be given the space and freedom to grow, explore, develop and make the world their own; on the other hand, children must be given boundaries and protected from unforeseen dangers of all types. But parents can’t predict everything, so how do they strike a balance between the two? (Over at the WSJ’s Metropolis blog, there’s a Q & A with Hara Estroff Marano, author of A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting, who discusses how parents can protect their kids without becoming overprotective.)
Readers: Has this tragedy raised your anxiety for your own kids? Are you more likely to scale back what your kids are permitted to do? Where do you draw the line between keeping your kids safe and overprotecting them? When do you let your kids navigate city or suburban streets on their own?