This is a kinda embrassing question to ask so pls don’t judge.
I did have moments where I like… went to the local library alone, or like an all day school trip or something…
But I never really like… explored outside alone… especially far from home…
So like… I feel scared about the idea of like… just going for a walk all by myself…
I realize I’ve always just asked parents to drive me somewhere so I never got a chance to just get in the habit of being by myself.
I don’t have a driver’s license so I don’t really have like a car to “retreat to”, if you know what I mean, like as in sort of “castle”.
How do I even “feel safe” just being outside on my own? For context I’m non-white so it’s… kinda intimidating… especially in the current context of US political atmosphere.
This is such a foreign question for me. In the country I grew up in children are kicked out of the door to go and play outside as soon as possible (age 3 or 4? Idk, long time ago). My parents would give me rules like “don’t cross the big road! And home by 6” and I would ride my tiny bike around the neighborhood together with my friends.
I think you’ll just have to go out as much as you feel OK with. And maybe think of a plan B for when things do go wrong. Stay close to other people who can help out if something goes wrong, tell others where you are and when they should expect you back, take self defense classes, have a phone at the handy, etc.
Yea I know, which is why I’m kinda embarassed to ask it on a western forum.
My parents kinda just never really put much effort into encouraging me to be independent.
Kids in my parents’ village might do that.
I think during 0-8 years old I was mostly living in a city, except like sometimes visiting parents’ villages and I never felt comfortable exploring much anyways, I don’t know the kids and I’d be back in the city for when school starts. Like city-city, not suburb. I was in Guangzhou, China. Like Apartment buildings. I remember my mom warned me a lot about kidnappers (apparantly it happens often in China according to my mom) so I don’t remember going outside often and never unaccopanied. Parents were like busy and worked from early morning till late at night. I mean they even have this weird child-proof lock thing that locked from the outside… like you turn a key all the way in a direction and it locks and prevents the inside from opening it. Cuz if nobody was home, my parents didn’t want us to like… run off or something…
Well I wasn’t like alone-alone, I just get stuck at home with my older brother… who just wanna like fight with me all the time…
Pretty sure this childproof lock thing is a firehazard… 👀
Oddly enough, I remember I’d walk home alone during school lunch time… like I’d walk home, eat lunch at home, then walk back to school (cuz there was no free school lunch), I was like 6-7 I think, and it was like in broad daylight so I guess my grandmother just didn’t feel like picking me up. But I think my grandmother was supposed to take me to school and pick me up most of the time.
That was the extent of my independence. I wasn’t allowed to like play outside… cuz of the supposedly kidnappers that roam the streets (I looked up a few videos now as an adult, kinda terrifying ngl).
When we arrived in the US… similar… but its more because of being in a foreign country so I personally also felt scared. My mom just put me in an afterschool program so I’d be in school till 6 PM then stay at home till next day. Weekends I’m not supposed to go outside unless there’s a parent with me. I always need a parents to go outside… I mean I guess mom both didn’t want me to be in danger and also was afraid leaving us outside unaccompanied would trip up CPS or something… and you definitely don’t want them involved when you’re new in the country.
So yea… I never got to be by myself
So I eventually learned English, and this place became “less foreign” to me. And I also got older…
but still… I think I just got so used to never being by myself from birth till like… 13 years old(I think?), that I never really tried to go outside much, even when I was eventually allowed to walk home by myself when I was 6th grade…
I did like go to the library a few times to use their computer to play some web browser unity fps games… but then stopped doing that when I had a computer at home.
My parents never really pushed me to go outside… and I think I just got so used to the “stranger danger”…
so… yeah…
I guess the takeaway from this post is… I realized how much my parents and the circumstances of my life kinda stunted my mental development?
Edit: Btw, my older brother who’s 5 years older than me still lives at home… so yea… I don’t see him going outside much except for like work… and he has zero social life…
So yea… thanks a lot, mom… 👀