剋制我們保護孩子的自然衝動 孩子應該散養

ON her first morning in America, last summer, my daughter went out to explore her new neighborhood — alone, without even telling my wife or me.

去年夏天，我的女兒來美國的第一天早上，她就走出去探索新的社區了——獨自一人，甚至沒告訴我和我太太。

Of course we were worried; we had just moved from Berlin, and she was just 8. But when she came home, we realized we had no reason to panic. Beaming with pride, she told us and her older sister how she had discovered the little park around the corner, and had made friends with a few local dog owners. She had taken possession of her new environment, and was keen to teach us things we didn’t know.

我們當然感到擔心，我們纔剛從柏林搬來，而且她只有8歲。不過等她回到家時，我們意識到沒有理由擔驚受怕。她自豪地笑着，向我們和她姐姐講述了自己是怎樣發現街角的小公園的，而且她還與幾個遛狗的本地人交上了朋友。她已經熟悉了自己的新環境，而且迫切地想教給我們一些我們自己不知道的事情。

When this story comes up in conversations with American friends, we are usually met with polite disbelief. Most are horrified by the idea that their children might roam around without adult supervision. In Berlin, where we lived in the center of town, our girls would ride the Metro on their own — a no-no in Washington. Or they’d go alone to the playground, or walk a mile to a piano lesson. Here in quiet and traffic-safe suburban Washington, they don’t even find other kids on the street to play with. On Halloween, when everybody was out to trick or treat, we were surprised by how many children actually lived here whom we had never seen.

我們和美國朋友聊天時談到這段故事，他們通常都會禮貌地表露出難以置信的態度。想到孩子或許會在沒有成年人監護的情況下自己四處遊蕩，多數人都會感到驚恐。我們在柏林居住在市中心，我們的女兒可以自己搭乘地鐵——這在華盛頓是絕對不行的。她們也可以自己去遊樂場，或者走一英里路去上鋼琴課。但在華盛頓這個環境安靜、交通安全的郊區，她們在街上連一起玩耍的孩子都找不到。在萬聖節前夜，所有人都出來玩“不給糖就搗亂”時，我們發現有很多孩子生活在這裏，而我們卻從沒見到過，因此感到十分驚訝。

A study by the University of California, Los Angeles, has found that American kids spend 90 percent of their leisure time at home, often in front of the TV or playing video games. Even when kids are physically active, they are watched closely by adults, either in school, at home, at afternoon activities or in the car, shuttling them from place to place.

加州大學洛杉磯分校(University of California, Los Angeles)的一項研究發現，美國兒童大約90%的閒暇時間是在家中度過的，常常是在電視機前，或者是在玩電子遊戲。即使在孩子們活動的時候，他們也會受到成年人的密切關注，無論是在學校、在家、午後出門活動時，或者是在車中從甲地移動到乙地時。

Such narrowing of the child’s world has happened across the developed world. But Germany is generally much more accepting of letting children take some risks. To this German parent, it seems that America’s middle class has taken overprotective parenting to a new level, with the government acting as a super nanny.

這樣收窄孩子的世界的現象，在整個發達世界都在發生。然而，德國人通常更願意接受讓孩子們面對一些風險。在我這個德國家長看來，美國的中產階級似乎把帶孩子時保護欲太強的問題，提升到了全新高度，而政府的做法彷彿是一個超級保姆。

Just take the case of 10-year-old Rafi and 6-year-old Dvora Meitiv, siblings in Silver Spring, Md., who were picked up in December by the police because their parents had dared to allow them to walk home from the park alone. For trying to make them more independent, their parents were found guilty by the state’s Child Protective Services of “unsubstantiated child neglect.” What had been the norm a generation ago, that kids would enjoy a measure of autonomy after school, is now seen as almost a crime.

馬里蘭州銀泉(Silver Spring)的兄妹，10歲的拉斐·梅蒂夫(Rafi Meitiv)和6歲的德芙拉(Dvora)，去年12月被警方帶走了，因爲他們的父母竟然敢讓她們自己從公園走回家。爲了讓他們更獨立，他們的父母卻被州里的兒童保護服務局(Child Protective Services)判定，存在“未經證實的育兒疏忽”。讓孩子在放學後享有一定的自主權，這是上一代人的慣常做法，可現在卻幾乎被當成了犯罪。

Today’s parents enjoyed a completely different American childhood. Recently, researchers at the University of Virginia conducted interviews with 100 parents. “Nearly all respondents remember childhoods of nearly unlimited freedom, when they could ride bicycles and wander through woods, streets, parks, unmonitored by their parents,” writes Jeffrey Dill, one of the researchers.

今天的父母們小時候享受過的美式童年是完全不同的。最近，弗吉尼亞大學(University of Virginia)的研究人員對100名家長進行了訪談。“幾乎所有的受訪者都記得，童年時有過近乎無限的自由，他們可以騎自行車，可以在樹林裏、街道上、公園裏遊逛，完全不會受到家長的監督，”其中一位研究人員傑弗裏·迪爾(Jeffrey Dill)寫道。

But when it comes to their own children, the same respondents were terrified by the idea of giving them only a fraction of the freedom they once enjoyed. Many cited fear of abduction, even though crime rates have declined significantly. The most recent in-depth study found that, in 1999, only 115 children nationwide were victims of a “stereotypical kidnapping” by a stranger; the overwhelming majority were abducted by a family member. That same year, 2,931 children under 15 died as passengers in car accidents. Driving children around is statistically more dangerous than letting them roam freely.

然而談到他們自己的孩子，向孩子給予自己曾享有過的一小部分自由的想法，卻讓他們感到擔心。許多人都提到擔心誘拐，儘管犯罪率已經顯著下降。最新的深入研究發現，在1999年，全美只有115個孩子遭到陌生人“典型意義上的綁架”，絕大多數孩子是被親人劫持的。同年，有2931名15歲以下的兒童作爲乘客死於交通事故。從統計數據看，駕車帶孩子們出門，比讓他們自由地遊逛更危險。

Motor development suffers when most of a child’s leisure time is spent sitting at home instead of running outside. Emotional development suffers, too.

如果孩子的大部分閒暇時間在家中度過，而不是在戶外跑動，那麼運動機能的發育就會受到影響。情感發育也會受到影響。

“We are depriving them of opportunities to learn how to take control of their own lives,” writes Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College. He argues that this increases “the chance that they will suffer from anxiety, depression, and various other mental disorders,” which have gone up dramatically in recent decades. He sees risky, outside play of children among themselves without adult supervision as a way of learning to control strong emotions like anger and fear.

“我們剝奪了他們學習如何控制自己生活的機會，”波士頓學院(Boston College)研究教授彼得·格雷(Peter Gray)寫道。他提出，這加大了“他們感到焦慮、抑鬱，及其他各種精神障礙的可能性”，這些精神障礙的發病率近幾十年急劇提高。在他看來，孩子們在沒有成年人監督的情況下在外玩耍，儘管有風險，但卻是學習控制憤怒和恐懼等強烈情緒的方法。

I am no psychologist like Professor Gray, but I know I won’t be around forever to protect my girls from the challenges life holds in store for them, so the earlier they develop the intellectual maturity to navigate the world, the better. And by giving kids more control over their lives, they learn to have more confidence in their own capabilities.

我不是格雷教授那樣的心理學家，但我知道我無法永遠保護我的女兒，幫她們應對人生向她們提出的種種挑戰。所以，她們越早發展出智力上的成熟，可以在這個世界中穿行，就越好。讓孩子對自己的生活有更多控制權，他們就會對自己的能力有更多信心。

It is hard for parents to balance the desire to protect their children against the desire to make them more self-reliant. And every one of us has to decide for himself what level of risk he is ready to accept. But parents who prefer to keep their children always in sight and under their thumbs should consider what sort of trade-offs are involved in that choice.

一方面是保護孩子的慾望，另一方面是讓他們自立的想法，父母在其中很難取捨。我們每一個人都必須自己決定，打算接受多大程度的風險。然而，那些喜歡把孩子放在自己的視線之內，抓在手心裏的家長們，應當考慮一下這種選擇背後的損失。

At a minimum, parents who want to give their children more room to roam shouldn’t be penalized by an overprotective state. Cases like the Meitivs’ reinforce the idea that children are fragile objects to be protected at all times, and that parents who believe otherwise are irresponsible, if not criminally negligent.

最起碼，希望讓孩子有更多空間去自由活動的家長，不應該被保護欲過強的政府所懲罰。類似梅蒂夫一家這樣的案例，強化了兒童是脆弱的物品，應當時時刻刻受到保護的念頭，也強化了如果父母不這樣做就是不負責任，甚至是玩忽職守似的犯罪的想法。

Besides overriding our natural protective impulses in order to loosen the reins of our kids, my wife and I now also have to ponder the possibility of running afoul of the authorities. And we thought we had come to the land of the free.

要想放鬆對孩子們的掌控，除了剋制我們保護孩子的自然衝動，我和我太太現在還要考慮惹惱官方的可能性。我們本以爲來到了一個自由的國度。