Making online interactions real

Last summer, I had a really cool experience. Ready for it?

I talked to the people I work with every day.

Sounds pretty awesome, doesn’t it? Actually, to most people I suppose it would sound unusual that I don’t talk to my coworkers, but that would be because you work IRL. Since my work is all online, it’s a rare treat for me to be able to spend time with my co-workers, people I text and email with almost every day.

It started with serendipity.

Dr. Kirsten Stein, the owner of Athena’s Advanced Academy, where I teach, has been friends with one of the other teachers for longer than Athena’s has existed. And she’s known another one of the teachers since birth (since that teacher is her daughter). When Prof. Becky announced a trip to California, we decided that we’d have our first in-person meeting with as many students and educators as we could muster.

A visit to the beach!

We met first to go tide-pooling, which was extra exciting since one of the teachers is a marine biology specialist. Since I live on the coast, I have been tide-pooling many times. But never with someone who could tell me about the reproductive habits of kelp.

Emma the Animal Lover explains the reproductive habits of kelp.

As soon as Emma the Animal-Lover started talking, I realized something cool was happening. I pulled out my cellphone and asked Emma and Becky to keep talking. We got lots of great video. (Forthcoming!)

Athena’s founder, educators, and students all in one place! What a treat!

A visit to the redwoods!

Then we decamped to my house for dinner. But first, we partook of the wonders of Nisene Marks State Park, which happens to be in my backyard. Professor Becky Riethmeier was out in front here, asking questions about the local flora and fauna. I pulled out as many of the names of plants as I could from the deep recesses of my mind. My kids and I made a homeschooling project of writing a book about the redwoods, but that was a good while ago.

The redwood canopy

It was very cool to walk in a forest I know so well with people who could ask such deep questions. From the crashing waves and wide-open space of the Monterey Bay to the filtered sunshine and dusty stillness of summertime redwoods is pretty much a day complete.

More friends and conversation!

But why stop there? Another Athena’s educator, Dr. Meg Wilson, lives nearby, and she arrived with her daughter and food for the potluck. We were complete!

Here’s where I get to the real theme here: I love our online school, and our online community. But there is nothing that cements it more than a real-life interaction with nature, food, and friendly conversation.

If your kids are learning online, make sure to try to connect that learning to their everyday lives. It’s not like we can always meet with friends who live thousands of miles away, but we can find ways to connect our online life to our real lives, and deepen the meaning of both.

On the other side of the free range

The last time I wrote about helicopter parenting was 2009. At that point, my kids were 10 and 6, a prime age when our culture is telling us to fear “stranger danger” and other harm that could come to our kids if we allow them the simple freedoms kids used to have.

Click on this handy chart from the CDC to find out the risks to your child’s life. Please notice that “stranger danger” doesn’t make the grade, as far as the CDC is concerned, of things you should worry about.

And I thought it was bad in those good ol’ days.

The New York Times reports that mothers (though, perhaps predictably, not fathers) are being charged with crimes and referred to Child Protective Services for leaving their children in perfectly safe situations that others deem “unsafe.”

Remember:

All research on childhood independence shows that hovering over children and never allowing them time to be alone is bad for them.

All research on childhood safety shows that “stranger danger” is so far down the list of risks for children (and so unpredictable) that acting to prevent it doesn’t actually prevent it.

Our free-range days

My kids are now 19 and almost 16. I allowed them a “free range childhood.” Amongst the “horrible” things I allowed:

  • walking to friends’ houses alone on our street
  • walking in the state park near our home alone
  • playing with friends on the street or in the park
  • riding the bus alone or in pairs
  • going into stores alone
  • waiting for me in the public library

My children loved to go on walks on our street. Shockingly, I allowed them to do it….though I did wish they would wear shoes!

Amongst the horrible things that have happened to them:

  • figuring out how to negotiate with typical adults
  • figuring out what to do when they missed a bus
  • learning to interact with other children naturally
  • learning how to manage money
  • and yes, making sure to keep their bodies and emotions safe from predatory humans

I realize that something truly horrible could have happened to them. But something truly horrible is so unusual and so random, it just as likely could have happened when they were with me.

The guilt monster

But I will admit, as the moms in the Times article explain, that guilt was a constant presence in my subconscious and conscious mind when they were out. I remember one time standing at the kitchen sink watching my younger child go out our front gate, having declared that they were going for a walk. I imagined the headlines: “Local parenting writer’s child abducted while walking alone.”

Bad Mommy!

For those of you with younger children now, the only advice is to keep these basic facts in mind. And if anyone questions you, please feel free to quote me:

  1. Choose your partner well, and the danger of physical violence against your child by an adult will be negligible
  2. Instead of worrying about stranger danger, get your baby vaccinated for diseases which they are more likely to die of
  3. Feed your child healthy food, including dairy without hormones, vegetables without excessive pesticides, and meat without unnecessary antibiotics
  4. Buy a safe car, and drive safely, and don’t look at your phone while driving
  5. Teach them safety skills, then…
  6. Set them free.

I can’t tell you how to avoid the guilt. That is a battle each one of us has to wage on her own.

RIP, Gentle Giant

A short note for a sad event: The largest old-growth redwood in Nisene Marks State Park (otherwise known as our wonderful backyard) is gone. It fell over in  a recent storm. Following are some pictures. Hoping that if the old-growth redwoods behind our house meet a similar fate, they fall down the hill, not toward our house!

Locals: Unfortunately, given the location of the tree you can’t currently get to it from the main entrance without wading in a very swift current—you’ll have to wait until they put the seasonal bridge up this spring to get to it. You could use the Vienna Woods entrance but then would have about a 20-minute hike (at least) to get there. There is an entrance across from Safeway that should put you on the correct side of the creek, but I’m not sure whether there is a sign.

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The sign still points toward a major attraction that is no longer.

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There’s an enormous hole in the vista that used to be filled with a majestic tree.

 

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Another visitor left roses.

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It stretches all the way down to the creek. I couldn’t lift myself up onto it to walk down, but my husband said that the top of the tree had “exploded” when it hit ground.

 

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A little perspective: he’s 6 feet tall!

 

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