When I was a kid, my parents encouraged me to be independent!
The main precaution was, I WAS NEVER TO GO WITH AN ADULT UNLESS THEY GAVE ME THE SECRET PASSWORD!
I still remember it. The secret password my parents gave me was, “candy”
I remember when Dad taught me to swim. I thought I would surly drown, but once i got out of the burlap sack I was OK, but them kittens kept scratchin me!☺
My mother and every mother up and down the blocks of the suburban town I lived in when growing up would be in jail today for child neglect. I walked two blocks to elementary school, alone. I walked about three quarters of a mile to my junior high school, alone. I walked over a mile to my high school when I missed the bus (which was quite often, actually), alone. On the way back home, usually there was company as we kids met up after school to walk part way with each other. I played outside after school, just as long as I made it home by when the streetlights went on or it was dinnertime. On weekends, I played with other kids; I played alone. There was a favorite tree one could climb up on the low branches in the middle of an empty field. I’d climb up with a good book and read perched on a favorite limb of that tree. I lived to post about all of this. My mom and all the other moms did not get arrested or go to jail.
Sounds like a Rodney Dangerfield joke.
You parents picked the on secret password every pedophile was bound to say?