Anna the Free

One of the reasons we cited often with regards to moving to Iceland was that in Iceland children have more autonomy. They, for example, go out and play unsupervised from a much younger age than in the (urban) US. We believe this is a good thing because a) we are lazy, and would rather stay indoors where it is warm and dry, b) we slow our kids down, c) kids need to learn to navigate the world on their own.

As it happens, we’re very fortunate in that twin girls at Anna’s age live on the other end of our building. They’re not in the same class as Anna, but they do attend the same school, at the same time. They got used to walking to school by themselves and one other neighboring girl last year, and so we sent Anna along with them on day two of school, and they still walk-pool. On day three of school, Anna was instructed to walk home by herself, which she managed quite well. (It should be noted Anna attended camp at her school for three weeks before school started, so we knew she knew the way).

But of course, Anna’s new Freedom is already throwing up some challenges. Before after-school-care kicked in, Anna was out playing with some boys. Later that afternoon her girlfriends arrived, and it became boys-against-girls – and there was some pulling of legs, not to mention “my dad is huuuuge, and he’ll beat you up”! (We had to point out to Anna that a) dad’s don’t tend to do what their children instruct them to do, b) nor do they tend to randomly beat up children.) This would never have happened had an adult been sitting nearby, which is unfortunate because this is ‘real life’ stuff.

Then there is the issue of It’s Dinner Time, Where Is Anna? Apparently, the neighborhood girls have quite a dog-walking racket going on, with some 3 dogs nearby needing playmates. And so Anna goes off, and is nowhere to be found when dinner is ready. We’ve made some progress in having her call us whenever she enters a friend’s house, but she’s still rather unreliable, and often out on some playground (the neighborhood has lots). So far we’ve collected phone numbers for three houses-where-girls-live, and I’m sure there will soon be more.

Finally, there’s the ‘boyfriend’ issue and teasing. In no time flat we heard from Anna that there had been a kissing game, where you had to kiss somebody to ‘free’ them. We’ve since instituted a no-kissing-your-friends-rule (but have no way to enforce it). Then some girls decided Anna had a crush on a cute boy in her class (Cute? They’re ALL cute at 7 years old for crying out loud!), the kissing game was dredged up, and then one girlfriend (apparently) went around telling everybody in earshot that Anna had kissed the cute boy. I happened to hear her volunteer this information while on a hunt for Anna (jeeez! we’re invited to dinner little lady! where have you been?) and thus could call the little vixen on her teasing.

I’m pretty sure all this is rather new to Anna, because even though she’s had playtime at school in the US, she’s had precious little totally unsupervised playtime, with roaming privileges. So far she seems to be doing ok, but I’m curious to see what happens next!