When Do We Start Letting Our Children Go?

From Joanne Jacobs Blog:

Poll: No unsupervised play for pre-teens

AUGUST 23, 2014 BY JOANNE 8 COMMENTS

Sixty-eight percent of Americans think it should be illegal to let kids 9 and under play unsupervised at a park, according to the new Reason/Rupe poll.
Recently, a South Carolina mother was thrown in jail for dropping off her 9-year-old at a popular playground.
Forty-three percent of those polled said 12-year-olds shouldn’t be outside without a caregiver, writes Lenore Skenazy of Free Range Kids on Reason. “They would like to criminalize all pre-teenagers playing outside on their own (and, I guess, arrest their no-good parents).”
Sixty-two percent of Americans agreed that “kids today face more threats to their physical safety,” the poll reported.
In reality, the U.S. crime rate is the lowest it’s been in decades, Skenazy writes. Some neighborhoods may be unsafe, but most are just fine.
“I doubt there has ever been a human culture, anywhere, anytime, that underestimates children’s abilities more than we North Americans do today,” says Boston College psychology professor emeritus Peter Gray, author of Free to Learn.

- See more at: http://www.joannejacobs.com/2014/08/poll-no-unsupervised-play-for-pre-teens/#sthash.dBbmrH1V.dpuf
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My grandfather was on his own at 12. Have our children regressed that much in 100 years? 

We rarely have unscripted recess at school. How long has it been since children have had to figure out, and organize, activities for themselves?

How can we produce leaders if we don't allow them to practice leadership during their developmental years? JBV