Sheltering Your Children

As the kiddo has gotten older, this topic has come up quite a bit.  Mostly from folks who think we are sheltering our child.  To be fair, they are 100% accurate.  However, we exist in a weird spot because while we most certainly DO shelter him, in many ways- we don't.  I know right?  How does that work?

We want our boy to have a childhood.  In today's society- in order to accomplish this, you have to keep them from certain things.  But we don't want an innocent lamb out for slaughter thrust upon the world.  See- WEIRD SPOT.


So here's how we are handling keeping the boy in boyhood.

• We homeschool.  By far the very biggest factor in sheltering your kids and the one that most folks seem to automatically jump on.  Eh- ok.  I guess I just don't see what the big deal here is...however by not sending him to a traditional public school, he is not privy to many of the issues surrounding children today.  There's no depression, anger management issues, sexual situations, drugs, inappropriate behavior etc.  It just doesn't exist in our homeschool world.
• No drop and run.  We do not and never have dropped our child off and simply left.  Nope.  There are two exceptions to this rule- the local YMCA (where we know the staff and have been going for years and the kiddo is very comfortable) and with a few select family members.  Sorry but not even all the family makes the cut.  We trust pretty much no one with the care of our child.
• We pick and choose his friends.  We prefer that our son hang with children who have parents that believe in many of the same values and morals that we do.  We don't mind "boys being boys" and we truly don't care if you are single parents, on welfare, own BMW's, are immigrates, have different religious beliefs etc.  But parents MUST be active in their child's life and paying attention to what is going on.  You must also be actively striving to teach your child right from wrong and parent from a heartfelt and good place.  In addition to this, we do not allow for sleepovers unless we know the parents and approve.  The kiddo has only ever had sleepovers with two different friends- one of which was his cousin.  So yeah- we simply don't do it.
• Encouragement of toys and childish things.  The kiddo is almost 11 and while many children his age are leaving behind their toys in favor of more "cool" and socially acceptable items, our son still plays Legos, Nerf and the like.  How sad to put away mementos of childhood while you are STILL A CHILD.  Gah, I just can't understand parents who push their children to remove childish things before they are ready.
• We do not allow people to take our kid places.  There are three people on the "exception" list and those being Grammie and Grampie and his Auntie who lives with us.  And then, it's to pre-approved places with a very clear idea of what is going on and when he should be returning.  Otherwise, if he's going to a party- we drive.  If he's been invited to the swimming pool with a friend, we drive.  You get the idea here...we simply don't know what kind of a driver you are and what sort of supervision you're offering once you arrive.
• Very limited access to a computer.  There is one computer in our home and it stays in the living room where we have constant supervision.  Since I use it for work Monday-Friday and it's not turned on during the weekends, the amount of time that the kiddo has to use it is very limited.  Pretty much, it's just for schoolwork.
• No free range TV watching.  The kiddo enjoys TV, what child doesn't?  However he watches pre-approved movies from the library and shows on Netflix and Hulu in our main living room. We do not have cable and everything is run by a parent first.
• No cell phone.  At this point, we simply don't see a need for it.  Sure, the kiddo wants one and he desires to be like many of his friends.  However, this is simply a want.  Once he gets a little older and perhaps away from Mom and Dad just a bit, we will most certainly get him one.  With phone and texting capabilities only mmkay....
• Constant adult supervision.  We are not the type of parents to allow our child to wander from us when out in public.  He stays by our side at all times.  In addition, we do not leave him in the car to run into a store "real quick" or at home for just a few minutes while we run out for milk.  We just don't.  Bad things happen in a split second.  We learned this the hard way and we will never repeat this mistake again.
• We only allow for age appropriate activities and events.  We realize our boy is growing up and would never want to stifle this but there are some things that he's simply too young to participate in.  And just because his friends are going, doesn't mean he will get to as well.
• We restrict the kind of language the kiddo uses. He's at that magical age where swear words are "cool" and many of his peers are using them.  At this point, the worst word he says is crap and even then, whenever I hear it, I tell him to knock that business off.  But it's not just swear words that are on the "no-go" list.  Words that are clearly insults or could be offensive are also not allowed.  A few of them being: stupid, retarded, idiot, shut up- you get the idea here.

On the flip side of this, we believe in raising a strong, independent boy.  It is important that he is street smart, world smart and LIFE smart.  Here's a few ways we do not shelter our child.

• Real world situations are discussed matter of fact and with honesty.  When the kiddo sees something in the outside world or asks a really tough question, we have always done our best to be open, honest and truthful in an age appropriate way.  For example, when he sees the local homeless people or finds needles on the corner of our street- we talk about it.  And when he has struggles with friends or teachers, we address it.  Simple as that.
• Exposure to lots of different people.  We firmly believe that raising a child to have understanding and empathy towards others is crucial.  To do this, we try to expose him to people of all different backgrounds, life circumstances, races, genders, ages etc.  We encourage friendships with children who are different then he is- be it, the neighborhood teenage girl, the sweet boy from Ethiopia or the six year old with autism.  Friendship knows no bounds.
• We swear.  Good Lord but we like the curse words in my house.  While we do our best to be mindful of our language when children are present, I am not going to lose my business if I let a bad word slip.  In addition to this, if we are watching TV or a movie and there's a few swear words, I'm not going to freak out.  The rule in our house is that these are simply "grown up" words and when your grown, you can say them if you choose to.  Until then- not gonna happen boy.
• Adult situations aren't that big of a deal.  Listen, we are not going to hide being a happily married couple from our kid and I don't think you should either!  Giving your child a view of what a happy and REAL marriage looks like is very healthy.  Sure, it might embarrass them to see Mom and Dad kissing all the time but they will grow up feeling all sorts of secure in their family and home life.  In addition, when they begin dating and travelling the road of being a good spouse and partner- knowing about healthy physical intimacy is important.   
• We talk about our bodies and their functions.  Poop talk is BIG in my house.  BIG y'all.  But we also take every opportunity to discuss other bodily functions and place a high importance on knowing your body.  We don't shy away from this sensitive and sometimes embarrassing topic and encourage our boy to be confident in his body.  We aren't embarrassed of our bodies and we teach our child to embrace and understand his own body.
• We listen to inappropriate music.  We have never been the parents that played classical music to the innocent baby in the womb.  Nope.  In fact, the husband used to play Cypress Hill to the kiddo before he was born and it really got that boy MOVIN'!  Music is music and we embrace it all.  As a result, the kiddo has a strong love of metal and rap music with a fondness for a little Weird Al.
• We allow our child to be a part of adult discussions.  Within reason y'all- but yes, we do.  We talk about adult topics like the extremely large water bill that we weren't budgeting for or the family member who said said some hurtful things when they probably shouldn't have.  Yes, we most certainly DO discuss things in front of our kid and then we talk about it with him.  We've found that this gives him a real world understanding of people and social dynamics and of course a firm understanding of how hard people work and what being a grown up really looks like.
•  We do not restrict video game content.  I know this may seem weird but I am really not too concerned with my child playing violent video games.  Why?  Well- he only plays these types of games WITH his Dad for very limited amounts of time.  I'm talking just a couple hours per month at the most.  We just aren't big "gamers" in our house...There's a few on this list that we don't allow, pretty much anything with the title Grand Theft Auto.  But shooter style games or ones that contain some swear words- eh....I'm not too worried.  My kid knows these are pretend and TV's do come with a mute button after all....
• We let him try, fail and succeed.  We do not limit the kiddo when it comes to experiencing, doing and participating.  If there's something he really wants to try or an event he wants to attend, we let him.  We give him the room to move at his own pace be it with his karate lessons and the freedoms to attend a party with friends (with me hanging out nearby) and of course the ability to fail or succeed all on his own.  Contrary to popular belief, sheltering your kid does NOT make you a helicopter parent.  It just doesn't.

Raising children, raising BOYS especially can be tricky in our current world.  Our desire as parents is to give our son a happy childhood and nurture a sweet and funny boy who will someday become a pretty kick-ass man.  We parent with the future goals in mind, always.  And yes, in many ways, we absolutely do shelter him.  We see nothing wrong with this at all and firmly believe that if more parents sheltered their kids, the world would be a much happier place.