Renée Schafer Horton: Lessons from Japan's free range parenting

A couple weeks ago, my daughter introduced me to the Japanese TV show “Hajimete no Otsukai” (“My First Errand”), which Netflix renamed “Old Enough!” when launching it to the top of its must-watch list.

It’s a weird little reality show featuring children ages 2 to 6 sent from their homes alone to run errands and/or manage public transportation. My first reaction upon hearing the show’s description was, “That’s lunacy!”

But I’ve actually found it intriguing. The first episode followed an almost 3-year-old walking numerous blocks to the grocery store and buying three items his mother asked for. The most terrifying part was when he attempted crossing a major intersection without benefit of a traffic light. He only had a little yellow flag his mother had taught him to wave to stop cars. He waved, they stopped, he toddled across, and I had a mild panic attack.

Lest we think the show’s producers have lost their minds, my research found that the errand routes are pre-planned and inspected by both parents and crew to check for hazardous roads or nefarious loiterers. The producers also practice with the children and there is an assigned “safety team” that hides where they can see the children but the kiddos can’t see them. Most importantly, neighbors along the route are informed of the child’s task so they can offer help if needed.

The upshot of “Old Enough!” is demonstrating the benefit of building a child’s self-confidence early through completion of real-life, difficult tasks. Compare this to, say, the U.S. practice of participation trophies for everyone.Let me be clear: I’m not in favor of toddlers — or even the average 5-year-old — going on errands alone, especially near traffic. Those cute kiddos in “Old Enough!” are only old enough because a team of adults is nearby making sure the worst doesn’t happen.

But I have also seen the damage wrought since the early ’80s when “stranger danger” came into our consciousness and parents began keeping children inside and incompetent.

In 1984, Congress created the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children following the abduction of a New York child by a stranger. They announced that nearly 750,000 children went missing each year.

The data’s fine print showed that the vast majority (about 500,000) of those children were teenage runaways who eventually returned home, and of the remaining, all but about 100 were taken by noncustodial parents or relatives during custody battles.

But the fine print didn’t get much press, and parents obsessed. Childhood became a gauntlet of adult-supervised activities, with children coddled and parents exhausted — and broke — from being chauffeurs and playmates. Children grew up lacking what unsupervised play (and chores) teaches: negotiation, cooperation, problem-solving and competence. It hasn’t been good for anyone — just ask any college professor dealing with helicopter parents and 18-year-olds without basic life skills. “Old Enough!” reminds us there’s a better way.

Here’s an example: Every day I walk past an elementary school with more than 50 idling cars waiting to pick up children who live less than a mile from the school so they don’t qualify for bus service. Ignore how awful idling cars are for the environment and focus on how awful this scene is for independence. All the children older than kindergarten should be walking or biking to school.Should they do it alone? Perhaps not. But if all the kids are walking, no one would be alone

In the meantime, parents can take a clue from “Old Enough!” and ask neighbors to keep an eye out. Start in first grade, ring every neighbor’s doorbell and go for it: “Hi, I’m Rachel. This is my son, Henry. He’ll be riding his bike around the neighborhood and to school to build his independence. Please keep an eye out for him. Do you have any children I can meet so they know I’m here to help if they need anything?”

This “Let me introduce my family” strengthens neighborhoods while making the area safe for independent child play. (And yes, we need some version of Utah’s Free-Range Kids bill so parents don’t fear Nosy Nancy calling the police about a group of 8-year-olds playing alone at the park.)

Let’s take a clue from Japan and get our own kids capable and contributing by elementary school. Take your 6-year-old to the market, give him three things to buy and wait by the front door while he figures it out. Walk with your 7-year-old to school for a week and then let her do it alone. Scour your neighborhood for children within two years of your kid’s age and invite everyone over for snacks, then kick them outside with a ball and chalk to invent a game. Stop giving into whining about homework and chores; sit down with your coffee (and earplugs) and let the kid learn responsibility.There are endless options for our children to be “Old Enough!” and as long as everyone stops short of sending a 3-year-old downtown with only a yellow flag as traffic control, I think we’ll all be just fine.