Forget Hansel and Gretel

I grew up (so to speak) in the days before helicopter parenting became the rage. My parents had the nutty notion that I was a human being and could figure things out.  This background gets me in a passel of trouble when the talk turns to kids today, especially when I hear parents say they won't let little Abercrombie or Hildegarde ride the school bus with those awful kids from "THAT neighborhood," or walk anywhere without a ride and a backup ride and air support.

But that's for another day. Today, I wish to shock the helicopter out of you by telling you what they do in the Netherlands.

The unfailing New York Times had an article about a summer tradition among the Dutch. They call it "dropping."  Here's what it entails, and please make sure you're sitting down when you read that Dutch pre-teens, out in summer camps, are dropped off in the woods at night and told to find their way back to camp. Just to make it more like real life, some parents will blindfold the kids on the ride to the new destination.

Pia de Jong is a novelist currently living in New Jersey, but she was born and raised in Amsterdam, and she reports that, "You just drop your kids into the world. Of course, you make sure they don't die, but other than that, they have to find their own way."

And no, the kids don't get to take their phones and find their way back with GPS. They do wear hi-vis vests and have maps and compasses, and a team leader has a cell phone just in case.

And in a few hours, they're back, and they have gained independence, confidence in their ability to live on their own, and some teamwork experience as well.

A woman named Lara wrote this to the Times; she was an exchange student in the Netherlands in the 1980s and participated along with her host's family:

"His parents blindfolded us and then dropped us off in groups of 3 or 4, several miles from their house. Maybe we had some sort of map — definitely no GPS — and we walked through farm land, country roads and some wooded areas in random patterns until things eventually started to look a bit familiar, and somehow found our way home. Each group made it back within a few hours. It was a really fun adventure and a nice little group competition and team bonding experience. At the time I took this to be a creative party game my friend's parents contrived for us; how fun to know it was a beloved Dutch tradition!"

Other commenters pointed out that Dutch "woods" are really just very large parks, so it's not like being in the Great Dismal Swamp with the Jersey Devil at your heels, to mix some similes.

Others pointed out that the droppings they experienced weren't nearly as ominous and scary as they sound.

"Droppings are still fun, but it's nowhere near being dropped 'in the middle of nowhere' There is no middle of nowhere in the Netherlands. Usually it a little bit of hiking in a dark piece of forest to make it exciting, and the rest is just following small country roads/ paths," said someone on Reddit.

This might be something for Americans to consider. Right now, the most treacherous trek I see a lot of kids taking is the ten steps from Mom's minivan to the front door of the school.

Let the kids fledge!