Mom Practices “Free Range” Parenting – Breastfeeds 5-Year-Old And Won’t Enforce Discipline And Rules

The world is full of “perfect parents”. Everybody has an opinion on how they would raise your kids better than you…

Generally, most parents are able to figure out some kind of strategy that ensures their kids stick to the straight and narrow but still manage to have fun. There’s no right way of doing it!

However, on the odd occasion, a parenting method will be widely dismissed by most people as ineffective or even kind of crazy. And the parents that practice these more niche approaches tend to meet pretty heavy criticism.

This certainly seems to have been the experience of “Free Range” parent Adele Allan. But (and all credit to her!) she’s sticking by her guns on this one!

(Image Credit: BarcroftTV)

Her “Free Range” kids are homeschooled, unvaccinated and do not have rules or discipline enforced on them. How the heck does this woman keep them from becoming little brats who won’t put on their freakin’ shoes in the morning?!

Oh wait… the kids don’t wear shoes. Their parents want them to experience the world through their feet.

“It’s a great way for her to feet alive and feel the sensations beneath her feet,” says dad, Matt.

Okay, so to average joes like you and I, this does seem kind of extreme…

I can’t say I’m totally crazy about not vaccinating your babies… Adele argues that breast milk can cure certain diseases like conjunctivitis and she wouldn’t want anything “foreign” entering her children’s bodies.

It should come as no surprise that Adele had extremely minimal medical intervention during her pregnancy. She was keen for everything to be done “au naturale”.

(Image Credit: BarcroftTV)

The Allen’s children do not attend school. Instead, their parents prefer to teach them about the world from their home, allowing the children’s interests to dictate their lessons.

The Allens are not particularly invested in their children’s ability to read and write, they’re assured such things will come later than expected and that other teachings are more important, as Matt explains;

“It’s much more important for us that a set of plastic toys for him to be interacting with the animals and plants and to be learning about the environment,”

(Image Credit: BarcroftTV)

I’ve got to agree with Matt here! Kids these days get thousands of brightly-colored plastic toys for their birthdays and then they never end up playing with them! Give them a set of car keys though? And they can’t get enough!

We could all do with teaching our little ones more about the environment though! In a world that is being taken over by electronic screens, it’s important to take your tots to the park instead of just shoving a screen under their noses.

Of course, the Allen’s have come up against their fair share of criticism. Hardly surprising, when even the most “moderate” parents get told what to do from the left, right and center.

Matt recalls the messages given to Adele when she refused medical intervention during her pregnancy, “We did receive some very interesting message such as what if your choices end up in your child being born dead”.

Such a response is disgraceful, it’s entirely a mother’s choice how she goes through her pregnancy.

I don’t even want to imagine the backlash Adele gets for breastfeeding her 5-year-old, given that most women can’t feed even their babies in public!

Regardless of your opinions on “free-range” parenting, it’s out of order for a complete stranger to inform (in no uncertain terms) a mother how she should or should not “be pregnant”.

I guess we’ve all been in the Allen’s boat. Okay, so you’re probably advising your kids to put their shoes on, but we’ve all been informed by self-elected genius’ right?

So should “free-range” parenting be all the rage? Or is it more problematic than the name suggests? Let me know your thoughts in the comments! AAx

 

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