Let Your Kid Take the Bus to Target?

All of us want to keep our kids safe. AND all of us want our kids to thrive. This generally requires letting them venture forth bit by bit into the world so they can fall in love with it. (And see how much they can handle — the opposite of anxiety!)

Amy Paden is no exception. She’s an attorney in Seattle, not far from Amazon and Microsoft HQ. But her parents were missionaries in Africa, where she grew up seeing well-loved kids trusted with real responsibility, including 4-year-olds helping care for their baby siblings.

Once Amy got married and started a family in the States, “I was like —  what’s up with all these playdates?” she told me in a phone interview. She wanted her kids to go knock on doors and find friends, so they did. “And they seemed to start a trend,” Paden reports. “Now they’ve got a great little posse on the street.”

Next, her daughter wanted to widen her horizons, so she presented a plan. Amy wrote to tell us how it turned out. (I’ve shortened her letter a little):

Hi Let Grow folks, 

I just wanted to share an experience that our family had recently that would not have happened without the Let Grow movement. 

My daughter Maddy turned 11 in June. She recently expressed an interest in learning to ride the bus to a mall about 3 miles from our house. I took a deep breath and said “yes!” 

I rode the bus with her on a Saturday so she would know how to navigate there. It’s about a 15 minute walk to the bus, then another 15 minutes on the bus. On  Monday around 9:30 as she marched off confidently, a wave of worry washed over me. Was this a really stupid idea? What if something happened to her? 

That afternoon I had to go down to the bank at 2:30. As I was driving there I saw Maddy walking home. She waved me down, all smiles.

She told me how she met some other girls who were hunting for “squishies,” how she got lunch at Starbucks, how she got on the wrong bus going home, how she had to walk back to catch the right bus, how that bus passed her stop without stopping, and how she finally got on the right one. She joked, “Mom! Everything that could have gone wrong did!” 

She was absolutely glowing with excitement, relief, and a deepened trust in herself. For me, it was an adventure in letting go. 

This trip would not have happened without the groundwork being laid by LetGrow. It has made a huge difference in our lives. 

Let Grow here: We are long-distance high fiving mom and daughter. And we are offering you, dear reader, a path toward the same kind of happy independence. Our free and simple “Independence Kit” has a list of activities kids can try on their own – depending on their interests, neighborhood, and you! “Deepened trust in herself” is what Amy’s daughter got out of doing something out of her comfort zone. “Trust in yourself” is the opposite of anxiety. 

“Letting go,”as Amy did. That’s the cure for anxiety!

If that’s what you seek for your kids or yourself, consider trying a few independence activities and seeing how they make everyone more relaxed and happy! Good luck!