Outdoor only

I adopted my son a little over a year ago. When he first moved home, he was 10-years-old and had spent quite a few years bouncing between family to family in foster care. Subsequently, he didn't have a very good grasp on a lot of basic principles, such as manners and appropriate boundaries. He honestly didn't know why it would be OK to ask for a drink of water, but why it isn't polite just to start rifling through a neighbor's kitchen cabinets.

While we worked on manners and boundaries at home, I decided it was best to set an outdoor-only rule when playing with neighborhood friends. I figured there were a lot fewer manner-glitches he could run into while playing outdoors. Besides, it was summer. Why should he be inside when there are bikes to be ridden and games of tag to be played?

A few of the other parents talked to me about the rule. They understood that he was learning new rules and needed stricter boundaries, but they didn't want him to feel different from the other kids in the neighborhood. In the end, they all supported my decision. And by the time winter's cold arrived, my son had a much better grasp on manners and could play inside friend's houses without unintentionally being rude.

When this summer rolled around, I really wanted to institute the outdoor-only rule again. Not because there was any greater need for it, but because it was summer -- and I believe kids should be outside and active. When the sun is shining brightly and there are so many things to do, kids just shouldn't waste their days playing video games.

To my surprise, many of the other parents in the neighborhood decided to set outdoor-only rules with friends during the summer. While they questioned my decision last year, they ended up deciding it was a good thing, too. Out of the 12 families with school-age kids in my neighborhood, 8 had outdoor-only rules this summer. If the kids wanted to play with each other, they needed to be outside.

As I was standing at the corner with some of the other neighborhood moms waiting the school bus to bring our kids home, we started talking about the change in season. One of the moms said "We'll have to start letting them play inside again soon. Too bad, really ... they get so much more exercise outside."

I'm so lucky to live in a neighborhood where the parents are all quite supportive of each other. Where we care about each others' kids and where our kids have so many safe places to play. Most of all, I'm lucky to live in a neighborhood where the parents are open to embracing new ideas and to see the benefits of it.

We've all heard the old saying "It takes a village to raise a child." I live in a good village. A very good village, indeed.