By Douglas Kruger
WHEN you’re nine, Hove is a faraway land, shrouded in mystery. Why, it might as well be Cairo. It might as well be Japan, the Himalayas! And many of the young Jersey players, ours included, got to travel without their parents for the first time ever. Riotous! Unheard of. William Wallace bawling, ‘Freeeeedom!’ to a soaring James Horner soundtrack.
According to the Whatsapp photos, much muddy wrestling ensued. Laundry baskets will be horror shows for weeks to come. And Jersey won most of its matches. But that wasn’t the best part.
The highlight occurred when the little boys and girls trooped out of Arrivals in their togs. They were surprised to discover a proudly waving Jersey flag, an applauding audience. Their little faces lit up with delight. They looked like tiny warriors returning from victory, or Springboks (if you will forgive the South Africanism) arriving home from yet another World Cup win.
For a child, there’s nothing quite like the dawning of independence.
It’s important to meet it out to them, responsibly, but liberally, with measured increase over the years. The goal, after all, is not to raise a child. The goal is to raise an adult, fully functional, able to cope out there in the wide world by themselves.
And certainly, it takes no small amount of letting go on the parents’ part. Gives me the heebie-jeebies. But Jersey is the perfect place to do it: small, safe, civil. If you can’t do it here, where can you?
Independence comes in varying shapes and shades. But come it must. The simplest start is the harrowing day you allow your child to cross a road without you. Step two is several roads – that first trip home alone. Walk the route with them once or twice, providing pointers for what to do if things go awry. But let them do it.
If all of this strikes as you terribly risky, consider how much earlier in life independence became the norm during centuries past. In frontier communities, kids in their early teens would hunt with rifles, work farms, help to drive teams of oxen. Okay, the marrying part was maybe a bit much. But letting an eight-year-old press a tiny button and cross a street while a little green man flashes is honestly no earth-shattering development. If it strikes us as one, the problem might be with us, not the kid.
For me, it all began at six. Cycling to the corner store was Novum Inceptum. I set out giddy with adventure, and laden with two small coins to buy a packet of Vampire sherbet. I got there fine, but managed to get slightly lost on the return trip. After a good cry, I tried it again the next day, then never looked back.
A generation prior, my Dad grew up in Florida. Not the American one, but a much smaller town of the same name on the outskirts of Johannesburg, not far from the spot where gold was first discovered.
In his early teens, he would come home from school, shed the uniform, and whistle for his dog. Armed with a sandwich, a water-bottle and a camera, the duo would walk alone for miles along the undeveloped hills of the Witwatersrand mountain range, under a golden African sun.
Wild animals, snakes and scorpions notwithstanding, he remembers it as one of the more meaningful parts of his youth. Even getting caught in the odd thunderstorm didn’t kill him, generating more memories than regrets.
Bubbles aren’t good for kids. It’s right that their safety is our first instinct. But if it it’s our only instinct, we just might be robbing them of something magical, something that makes life worthwhile. Time to think. Time to be free. Time to begin becoming truly themselves.
And every family handles it differently. In our case, it is a planned policy of constant enlargement of our child’s freedoms. ‘We’ll show you how. You show us you can be trusted. And with that, you may have a little more room to roam.’
It may be terrifying to let them take risks. But how much worse to be the reason they themselves never take a risk. How safe is it really to stifle grandeur of spirit?
If you’re keen to try it, the conversations can be very frank, very honest. Let your child know that your goal is for them to become more independent, more able to do grown-up things by themselves. Ask if there are any they might like to try. Do they want to cook something? Go somewhere? Be responsible for something that you currently do? How about a bus trip to Gorey and back?
Their first faltering attempts will almost certainly be…wonky. That’s okay. Give them feedback, model how to do it, let them go again. Keep it up long enough, and eventually you have an adult on your hands.
We’re very grateful to groups like the Jersey RFC. It’s a mammoth task to herd so many wiggling, giggling little athletes through airports, onto planes and buses, out onto a muddy field for their matches. All the way back again, late at night. I’m assuming strong drinks were had back home.
But the difference it makes in their lives is massive. This is the beginning of young spirits launching out into the world. If they get a taste for it, there’ll be no stopping them, and that’s good. That’s exactly what we want.
Douglas Kruger is an author and speaker based in Jersey. His books are all available via Amazon and Audible.
