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Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus
I'm wondering how many Cellar people were brought up this way - were your parents so involved in running your life as to tell you what to do and what not to do? Especially for something so minuscule as to direct what games you could play, what books you could read, what movies you could watch, who you could be friends with, when you had to be home, and so on?
That just seems like extreme micromanaging to me.
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Parenting a baby is 100% micromanaging, and that number ideally approaches zero by the time the kid is 18. But the whole time in between is a gray area that is going to involve a certain amount of restrictions on all the things you mentioned. Do you feel an 8-year-old should be able to go out at night as they please? Should a 4-year-old thumb through an incredibly violent and bloody graphic novel? The restrictions come down one by one over the years, but everything has to be tailored to the specific child. There was, for example, a television show just recently that we told the older kids they weren't allowed to watch, but not because we think we can keep them from the content--it's because those specific children have a problem with emulating what they see on TV. We have made it clear to them that when their behavior is not a problem, then we will know they are responsible enough to watch the show. In my opinion, they are too old to be acting the way they are, and it disappoints me to have to micromanage them in this particular way, but evidence has shown it's still necessary.
That kind of encapsulates what I grew up with, and what I try to practice with my children: you get as much responsibility as you can handle, and not more or less. Throwing them in the deep end to fend for themselves is just as irresponsible as fiercely sheltering them--in the Ouija board case, for example, if a child had shown a previous inability to handle "scary" things (say, having nightmares for days following a moderately suspenseful movie, or genuinely believing in ghosts or monsters,) then I would be hesitant to let them play. Not because it's "bad," but because that particular kid isn't ready for it.