By Amy Elizabeth Olrick

So many things in life are beyond our control and even beyond our imagination. I think about that whenever I read an article about a tragedy involving a child—an eight-year-old drowned in a pool, a toddler run over in his driveway, the college freshman dead after drinking too much one night, a son lost to suicide.

I want to reach out to those mothers and say—say what? Maybe something like, This article doesn’t talk about how you used to cut up his grapes to make sure he wouldn’t choke. It doesn’t mention how you would stay up all night, cradling her close when she had those high fevers. Remember how you waited by the phone all night, ready to pick him up and bring him home, and the hours you spent praying and desperate, trying to find help? Your baby had a good mother. You are a good mother.

Protection to me has come to feel like trusting my instincts, doing the best I can, and hoping I am making the right calls. It means knowing that bad things can and will happen and trying not to let that knowledge paralyze me. I know my fears could keep me from letting my kids do the things they need to do to develop and grow.

When our oldest boys were about 10 and 12, we began to notice they didn’t roam. We’d recently moved to a sprawling Florida community that wasn’t as easy to navigate as the hometowns Jeffrey and I had lived in growing up or the Virginia city our boys had been comfortable in before our move. And because we hadn’t been there long, the kids weren’t sure how to find their new friends. But those factors didn’t fully explain their lack of exploration. Part of it was due to a shifting culture—most kids our boys knew weren’t venturing out either, so it didn’t feel natural to ours to set out on their own.

But when Jeffrey and I were young, our minds carried within them detailed maps of our communities. We knew where each of our friends lived, could make our way to school and back, and took frequent trips to local stores to run errands for our moms or pick out treats with some pocket money. I learned to steer clear of the mean man who yelled at me for picking flowers, and Jeffrey figured out an alternate route to avoid the neighborhood bullies parked at the end of his block. These were simply things we had to learn to navigate on our own.

Jeffrey was concerned that our boys’ lack of roaming could set them back in the long run. By not learning early that they could survive some external stress and experience success on miniventures out into the world, the larger explorations that loomed on their horizons, like driving a car, getting a first job, or going off to college, could seem more anxiety provoking than they needed to be. His long view of parenting says that by not exposing them to small, navigable dangers early, they would be more prone to paralysis later when they ran into bigger, more adult-size troubles. He wanted to make a plan to push the boys out the door.

I had to think that through for a bit. I didn’t mind having my kids right there with me at home, safe and close. I worried about the things that could happen to them if we pushed them to freely explore. But I forced myself to dig deeper, to look beyond my immediate fears, and to tune out a 24-hour news cycle confirming that there is always something terrible happening somewhere in the world.

The truth was that the crime rates in our community were the same or even lower than when I was a kid, so in theory our boys would be in no more risk than I had been. I also had to face my own potential shame and worry about what other parents would think of me. Would sending our boys out on their own, even occasionally with their youngest brother, be frowned upon? I took a deep breath, and we decided to find out.

Jeffrey went online and pulled up a map of his childhood hometown. He marked out the streets of his youth, figuring out the distance in miles he used to wander when he was young. Next he looked at a map of our new community and measured out a similar distance. He found landmarks and places of interest within that area and took the boys on a bike ride, showing them a little park they could bike to, pointing out friends’ houses, and finding a strip mall with a pizza and sandwich shop where they could go to buy a snack.

Finally, he created a few scavenger hunts for them, telling them they had to stick together while hunting for a rare lizard in the green space of a neighborhood next to ours, finding a tucked away playground, and dropping something off for a friend. After they were comfortable with these initial forays out, I took over and started to enjoy the now-old-fashioned role of pushing them out the door. “Go, just go! Go to the pond, or go find someone to play with, but get outside!” Or, “Here’s five dollars—go with your brother to get a slice of pizza.” I also contributed by making sure they had a flip phone with them on their adventures, more to reassure myself than anything else.

Given my childhood experiences, it’s a little odd to even have to write all that out—Jeffrey’s instructions for how to get your kids to leave the house. But with fear on the rise, it seems increasingly important. Yes, there are dangerous things out there, and trust me, my mind went to all of them. Imagine scrolling news headlines running through my worry-filled brain: Cars! Alligators! Strangers! Friends with parents with unsecured guns!

But instead of saying no, we taught the boys to watch out for cars and how to turn and signal with their bikes on our sidewalk-less streets. We taught them about stranger danger. We told them to turn and leave immediately if one of their friends started talking about a real gun.

Our calculations would have been different had we been raising brown or black boys in our mainly white, homogeneous Florida neighborhood. We likely would have made a different call. Ultimately, this was one of the reasons why we decided to move our children again when an unexpected opportunity arose for us to travel overseas. We wanted to give the boys the chance to get to know people whose life experiences were very different from their own. We know there is also danger, soul danger, in learning to believe that people who don’t look like you should be regarded with fear and suspicion.

But while we were in Florida, I chose to swallow my concerns and believe what Jeffrey told me—that the long-term consequences of teaching our kids that the world is so scary that you can’t leave the house are significant. Going out into the world is not risk-free for anyone, especially children.

But seeing our boys holed up on the sofa, perfectly safe but not wanting to go out and explore, was an indication to Jeffrey that they were in trouble. To let them go, it helped me to understand there was a risk to our boys’ long-term sense of confidence and security if they didn’t set out into their childhoods and make them their own.

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Taken from The 6 Needs of Every Child: Empowering Parents and Kids through the Science of Connection by Amy Elizabeth Olrick and and Jeffrey Olrick Ph.D. Click here to learn more about this book.

Like most parents, Amy and Jeffrey Olrick left the hospital with their first child desperate to know, “What do we do?” But years of parenting three kids and Jeffrey’s work as a child psychologist convinced them to ask a better question: “How shall I be with this new person?”

In a culture obsessed with parenting formulas, it’s easy to miss the fact that science and lived experience have proven that human development and thriving are a matter of relationship. Drawing on decades of psychological research, neuroscience, and their own experience as parents and people of faith, the Olricks present six relational needs for human growth that will transform the way you think about your child—and yourself. Together, the needs form a trustworthy compass to guide you and your child to a path of purpose and relational wholeness.

For parents who feel pulled in a hundred directions, dizzied by the volume of clashing strategies, and jaded by the parenting programs that complicated their own childhoods, The 6 Needs of Every Child is a groundbreaking roadmap integrating the science of connection with practical tools. You’ll be equipped with:

• An in-depth look at the six essentials your child needs to thrive
• Tools to use when you feel stuck
• The secret to secure connection with your child
• Self-assessment tools to discern your unique parenting style

More than a parenting guide, this book is your invitation to break free from the myth of perfect parenting and embrace your child’s long journey of growth. With insight, humor, and compassion, it calls parents to discover the power of being imperfectly present with their children, developing mental, emotional, and spiritual resilience that will sustain them for a lifetime.

Amy Olrick is an author and a techie who has spent her professional life working with organizations to build social movements grounded in the ethic of love. Her work and writing have been featured in The Guardian and USA Today. She lives in New Zealand with her husband and their three children.

Jeffrey Olrick, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist who specializes in working with children and families. Dr. Olrick has over twenty years of experience working in a variety of settings, including the University of Virginia, residential treatment, the public school system, community mental health, and private practice. He lives in New Zealand with his wife and their three children.