直升机似的父母还是自由的孩子？Helicopter Parents vs. Free-range Kids

最近《新闻周刊》上的一篇关于儿童教育的文章表明越来越多的父母过度地担心孩子，把他们始终留在自己的身边，把他们的自由和独立意识都给剥夺了。

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:

有一些人十分支持这样的观点，并声称孩子的安全是最最重要的。因此，在成年以前孩子们最好还是不要在无人监护的情况下进入这个危险的社会。在我看来，他们的观点有一些是正确的但让孩子们远离独立则是完全错误的决定。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，把孩子锁在身边会阻碍孩子精神和身体的健康成长。那些被关注的孩子会变得依赖父母，他们的综合能力，比如交际能力和团队合作能力，这些方面的能力可能会得不到提高。

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，这些家长没有看到的事实是犯罪率和事故并非急剧增长。主要原因是过度泛滥的大众传媒把暴力和犯罪变得更加恐怖。于是，那些爱护孩子的父母，总是有种这样的错觉：我们的社会充满了危险的暴乱和事故。所以，孩子们应当获得更多的自由，比如他们可以自己走路上学。

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.

从刚才讨论的结果来看，我们显然可以得出这样的结论：孩子们应当在父母的支持下获得更多的自由。与此同时，父母还当考虑到各方面的因素比如对孩子时间管制，或是对孩子的成熟程度及能力水平的衡量。直到那时他们才能过个安全而有意义的童年。