Helicopter Parents vs. Free-range Kids

According to a recent article on Newsweek concerning children’s’ education, there is an increasing number of parents worrying their kids to an extreme extent, depriving them of independence and freedom by keeping them around parents all the time.最近《新聞周刊》上的一篇關于兒童教育的文章表明越來越多的父母過度地擔心孩子，把他們始終留在自己的身邊，把他們的自由和獨立意識都給剝奪了。

Some people applaud this phenomenon, suggesting that kids’ safety is the most important. Thus, they’d better not enter the hazardous society without supervision unless they become adults. From my point of view, some of their opinion is correct but keeping children away from independence is a completely erroneous decision. The reasons are as follows:有一些人十分支持這樣的觀點，并聲稱孩子的安全是最最重要的。因此，在成年以前孩子們最好還是不要在無人監護的情況下進入這個危險的社會。在我看來，他們的觀點有一些是正確的但讓孩子們遠離獨立則是完全錯誤的決定。我的理由如下：

First and foremost, “locking kids” may hinder their healthy growth, both mentally and physically. The kids who are locked may have heavy reliance on their parents, as their comprehensive skills such as communication skills or cooperative spirit being prevented from developing.首先，把孩子鎖在身邊會阻礙孩子精神和身體的健康成長。那些被關注的孩子會變得依賴父母，他們的綜合能力，比如交際能力和團隊合作能力，這些方面的能力可能會得不到提高。

Secondly, what these parents fail to see is the fact that the crime rate and accidents aren’t on a rapid rise. It is the abuse of mass media that make crimes and violence more scary. The parents, who love their kids so much, are completely forced to live under the illusion that our society is full of riots or threats of accidents. Thus, kids can be allowed to have more freedom such as walking to school by himself, for instance.其次，這些家長沒有看到的事實是犯罪率和事故并非急劇增長。主要原因是過度泛濫的大眾傳媒把暴力和犯罪變得更加恐怖。于是，那些愛護孩子的父母，總是有種這樣的錯覺：我們的社會充滿了危險的暴亂和事故。所以，孩子們應當獲得更多的自由，比如他們可以自己走路上學。

From what has been discussed above, we may safely draw a conclusion that kids should be given more freedom by parents’ effort. At the same time, parents should take many factors into consideration such as the time restriction for children and the evaluation to kids’ maturity and capability. Only then can they enjoy a safe and meaningful childhood.從剛才討論的結果來看，我們顯然可以得出這樣的結論：孩子們應當在父母的支持下獲得更多的自由。與此同時，父母還當考慮到各方面的因素比如對孩子時間管制，或是對孩子的成熟程度及能力水平的衡量。直到那時他們才能過個安全而有意義的童年。