I see this question a lot, and have asked it myself many, many times. Having kids so young, I never know what a good age would be for certain things. The one I saw most recently is when should kids start to have more independence? Since my kids are all under the age of 5, I don't have any experience with this personally, but I do have an idea of when I think good ages would be. For instance, my girls play outside by themselves already, and they're 4 and 3. Granted, we do have a fenced back yard with a gate so they cant get out, but we don't let them play in the front yard by themselves. Isabelle demonstrated why last night when she went running towards the road. Now, she was going to the grass that's between the road and the sidewalk, but still. There was a car coming, and she knows she's not supposed to go running that way unless Grant or I am with her. But I don't plan on that being the case forever. She already knows she's not supposed to do that, so I figure that when she can really actually behave out there, she should be able to play in the front yard by herself by the time she gets to that 7 - 10 age. My best friend has a 10 year old, and I kind of base things off of her in a way. She's a really good kid, and knows what she can and cant do. Now, I live in Fargo where the cars aren't exactly slow in my neighborhood and where I'm constantly worried about something happening to my kids. But once we get to Casselton (hopefully as long as things go smooth that'll be next week!!), I wont be quite so worried about it. That's one of the things I love about living in a small town. You still have the same worries as you do in Fargo, but I don't think quite as many. When I lived in Mapleton, I used to ride my bike all over town by myself for hours. My parents never had to worry about me. Granted, this was 20 years ago and times have changed. But you get where I'm going with this. I wanted to live somewhere where I'd be ok if my kids took their bikes out for a while. Hell, even now I see kids riding their bikes and they look like they're under 10. I don't think there's a specific age where you can be like "ok, you're 7 now so you can do xx things". It's more of just a question of when are they mature/responsible enough to do it...and also are you giving them a chance to show you they can be responsible enough. It'd be kind of hard for the girls to learn what they can and cannot do if I never give them the chance to learn. How are they supposed to know that they cant go on the road unless they push that boundary and mom or dad push it back? That's something else to consider.
With things like electronics, I have a harder time with that. I'm old school so I'm thinking I wont give the kids cell phones or iPads or things like that until they're like 13 or whatever. But I also don't want them to be the only kids without those things which causes them to be bullied or teased. Kids are such assholes these days that someone cant be remotely different than they are without repercussions. Pisses a mom off!! So we might have to give a little bit on that, but we'll cross that road when we get to it. It'll depend on where things are at when the time comes. I don't like the idea of kids staying inside all day playing video games or on their phones or on an iPad. I want our kids to go outside as much and as often as they can. To go explore the bushes and grass to see what kind of bugs live there. To go get dirty and play and let their imaginations run rampant. It's easier now since they're too young to have a cell phone or anything like that. It's going to get harder the older they get, but hopefully we can keep that love of being outside alive and well in them. We love camping, and the girls had so much fun last year when we went, so hopefully that'll help.
I love that I have friends with kids of all ages so I can get suggestions and ideas from them. But ultimately it's going to be up to me and Grant to determine when our kids are old enough for things. It's going to be hard with some things, but we also know that we need to let them go a little bit so they can spread their wings. We cant watch them every minute of every day, waiting on the sidelines to swoop in and get them out of any situation they might find themselves in..and I'm talking like getting up on something that's not too high up and not knowing how to get down or falling down and getting a scrape...that kind of thing. Obviously if they're in real danger you better believe I'll do all sorts of swooping! But you get my drift. If we want our kids to be well rounded and mature and responsible, we have to, at some point, step back and trust in the fact that we did good as parents. Otherwise, we'll have kids that never learn to take care of themselves, and I don't know about you guys...but I don't want that.
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