Forgive me, but I think some people going a little bit too far. It’s one thing to say that your 11 y.o. child should not be roaming the streets of BP/Flatbusg/Lakewood/Monsey (pick your community) at night, but it’s another thing entirely to question why an 11 y.o. was going to throw out the garbage at night in a bungalow colony.
Last night I sent my 12 yo out to put the garbage in the can on the driveway (in Rockland). It was 9pm. Was that wrong?
Yes, we have to protect and educate out children, but we cannot turn them into crazed neurotics, afraid of their own shadows. The way I explain it to my kids is as follows: most people in the world are good, the problem is that we don’t know who the few crazy ones are. Therefore, we are very aware of stranger danger (we frequently discuss what to be careful of and what to do in a given situation).
We need to give our children the tools to cope with life, not completely insulate them from everything only to throw them to the streets (figuratively speaking) to fend for themselves when they’re older and stil completely clueless.