Free Range Parenting Case Study

What is free-range parenting? When “you believe your role is to trust your child. You equip them with the skills to stay safe, and then back off.” (English, 2016). In the article “The case for free-range parenting” by Clemens Wergin (2015), his approach is that free-range parenting is insightful and persuasive. He argues that free-range parenting is a more effective way of raising children to be more independent and it gives them a better idea of the real world rather than constantly watching over their every move and making them spend all their leisure time at home either watching tv or playing video games. Wergin cited a study by the University of California, Los Angeles, that gave us an insight on the fact that 90 percent of American kids
Wergin believes that not letting kids roam around might affect their motor development and emotional development when most their leisure time is spent at home or not being physically active. He includes an argument by Peter Gray a research professor at Boston College, in which he argues that chances of getting anxiety, depression and other sorts of mental illnesses are increasing due to the fact that kids are kept at home rather than being more physically active outside. Overall Wergin wants his kids to be more independent in order to be able to survive in the real world when their parents aren’t around anymore to watch over their every move. Wergin believes it’s important for kids to have freedom in order to survive and believes that parents shouldn’t be criminally responsible for letting their kids roam around
For example, Wergin explains how kids spending all their leisure time has an impact on their motor development and emotional development skills by using words like anxiety and depression in professor Gray’s opinion on kids not being independent and deprived from learning how to be independent, for example “He argues that this increases the chance that they will suffer from anxiety, depression, and various other mental disorders” (Wergin, 2015). Then he includes the fact that kids playing outside without any supervision could be a factor to them learning how to control emotions such as anger and fear. The use of emotionally charged language throughout this article makes his argument seem more logical and developed in the sense that he makes the reader realize the most important factor in supporting supervised parenting. Using pathos as an appeal persuades the reader to become cautious about their actions and opinions on supervised parenting because loaded language makes reader think twice about putting their child through