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Free-Range Parent, Injured Kid
In the face of trauma that challenges who we are, who will we become?
I love the idea of free-range parenting. I love it just as much as I hate the fact that free-range parenting is radical enough that society feels the need to brand it. At ages five and four, my kids were old enough that I could yell at them to “go outside and play,” and they’d just go. Much of the time, I wasn’t even out there with them. They’d run circles around the house, picking weeds to bring back to their play set to “cook” with. I could be assured that all was well when they triggered the Ring camera by the front door.
And then, the four-year-old broke her leg.
She wasn’t doing anything particularly dangerous. I was being far less “negligent” than I often am, standing a mere ten feet away and watching her play. She simply jumped — off a foam block about six inches high — and fell with her leg bent behind her. That was all it took.
I’m not here to talk about the harrowing forty-eight hours that followed, involving drugs you would never imagine being given to a preschooler and major surgery to repair a femur fracture so high up on her leg that it necessitated a spica (full body) cast. I’m not here to talk about the crushing devastation of her ten-day follow-up appointment, when the surgeon…