<p>If being afraid is what it takes for her not to get back on a boat until she’s old enough to really make the decision without her parents influence then so be it. She’ll be a bit safer for a few more years. If she takes it in stride like her parents, then she’s going to be back out there while she’s still young enough to garner some sort of record.</p>
<p>Perhaps there is a fundamental philosophic difference. I am not and never was the keeper of my childs safety. One cannot keep his or herself or anyone else safe from life. The best you can do is prepare and help a child prepare to live fully in life, including all the risks. </p>
<p>My S asked to learn to be a ninja when he was about to turn 5 at a time when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were all the rage. He took tae kwon do training from age 5 through age 14 and is very proficient. In those years of training were there injuries? Yes, but how else was he going to learn? How does a parent expect a child to learn to deal with risk if the child never experiences it while the parent can provide some guidance?</p>
<p>My S just came back from 4 weeks solo budget traveling (backpack, tuk tuks, buses and hostels) in Cambodia and Malaysia. The young woman of approximately his same age from Greeley who was solo hiking in the Himalayan Mountains probably is never coming back. They both are fortunate people. I have friends whose son hanged himself in his closet when he was not quite 10 and others who son died in a single car crash before the end of high school. </p>
<p>Death happens. To everyone. So live life cause you never know when it is your time to die.</p>
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<p>Oh, but you know you were, 07DAD. If your toddler thought it would be a fun, enriching experience to play in the middle of a busy street, you would not have permitted it. As long as the child did not appreciate the danger, you had to be the keeper of safety. </p>
<p>What I have a hard time wrapping my head around is how old does a child/teen have to be to be able fully appreciate the danger of something like a solo sail around the world, or a trek up Everest…something where death is a fairly distinct possibility.</p>
<p>07Dad…hey, my kid had taken similar risks too. My kids were ski racers and we know many who have died or been paralyzed doing that sport. My kid, like yours, has traveled solo and lived solo in several foreign countries where she knew nobody. She is a girl. By the way, she also went all over Cambodia (and Laos) like your kid. She is overseas as I write this, on her own in a city where she knew nobody, and has done this sort of thing many times. I let her drive at age eighteen 6000 miles to Alaska including the Al Can Highway. Of course taking risks can be a good thing. My kids are constantly taking risks. My other kid is gonna go overseas in a foreign city and travel alone next month too. </p>
<p>But I do feel when kids are under 18, we ARE the keepers of their safety in the sense that we make decisions about risks where we have any control (other risks we can’t fully control of course). We can’t keep them entirely safe. I had a sixteen year old who was very severely injured driving, so I know. </p>
<p>But some things involve such a high degree of danger, that as a parent, we can say no to minimize that risk. It is one thing to go hiking in a foreign land alone. It is another to be out in the sea thousands of miles from any humans, where a boat can easily malfunction (her boat has done so twice now), major storms can wipe her out, and there is no way to get help fast. That is not nearly the same as hiking alone in a foreign country where there is civilization within miles and you have no mechanical failures but your own body.</p>
<p>07Dad,</p>
<p>Our goal as parents is to shelter and feed our children, teach them the ways of the world and then send them off. Along the way we teach them about exciting and scary things like risks and opportunity as well as the mundane things like how to balance their checkbooks and cook their own meals. </p>
<p>One child can go backpacking and come back safely - or not, as you demonstrated. An accident on the freeway can cause someone to lose their life, but that doesn’t mean we stop driving. It does mean we watch our speed, drive when fully awake and not too drowsy, don’t take medications or drive under the influence and wear our seatbelts, while driving cautiously. That is helping to protect not only ourselves, but those on the road with us - both in our cars, and in other cars and trucks. Still, there can be an accident.</p>
<p>When your son was little, you buckled him in his car seat - because you were protecting your child’s safety. Even if he didn’t like being buckled in.</p>
<p>I have a kid backpacking on the other side of the earth, right now. There are no guarantees. Scares me silly. I look forward to his email check ins, as well as Skype. He is in a civilized area where if something was wrong with him, he could seek medical attention, but still he is out there. By himself. He has made friends in youth hostels and travelled around the country with these new friends. He is doing that, because there are safety in numbers. </p>
<p>Travelling alone in Asia is risky. Travelling alone in NYC is risky. </p>
<p>But travelling in a boat in the middle of the ocean is the epitome of risky.</p>
<p>Nobody is going to change your mind, 07Dad. That’s cool. But on this forum, with such a wide range of opinions shown, many of those parents who normally disagree about everything else under the sun seem to have come to this viewpoint of how downright crazy this trip was for a woman of her age. </p>
<p>I think solo travelling around the world boat alone is crazy whether you are 16, 26 or 36. </p>
<p>At least when you are older, you have more life experience to think through difficult situations. I am not the same person I was when I was 16. I was too impetuous. I didn’t care what other people thought, and often put myself in situations that, looking back, can’t believe I thought was a good idea.</p>
<p>But as we know on this forum, your mileage may vary. You see the world differently. So be it.</p>
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<p>That is probably the single most reprehensible thing I have ever heard a parent say. </p>
<p>Just as a physician’s single most important credo is “First do no harm,” the parallel for parents is “First keep them safe.”. Granted, that involves many judgment calls and risk vs benefit assessments along the way, but to make a blanket statement that you are not responsible for your child’s safety is outrageous.</p>
<p>The manifestations of that philosophy, by the way, will subject you to serious criminal repercussions including, but not limited to, loss of custody in every state in the US. </p>
<p>You might want to rethink exactly what you said or meant to say.</p>
<p>Momofsongbird, You are so correct. If a parent feels no responsibility to keep their child safe, that is so sad. 07Dad, To even equate the stunts of these Sunderland parents with the parents in the camping tragedy in Arkansas (which apparently involved an unexpected flash flood) is disgusting.</p>
<p>Death happens everywhere but it can happen much easier running across a busy freeway than a country road. Some adventures are far more risky than others.</p>
<p>07Dad: if your 14 year old daughter decided that she wanted the adventure of hitchiking to Florida over spring break, would you have allowed it? If your five year old decided they no longer wanted vaccines, would you have gone along with it? Do you ask your child to wear a bicycle helmet or a seat belt? Even if they don’t want to? </p>
<p>Of course death happens. Sometimes no matter how much we try to avoid it. But actively seeking it or tempting fate is not the ideal parenting method.</p>
<p>Don’t pay attention to 07Dad, he does this when he gets bored and runs across a thread where everyone is in too much agreement. ;)</p>
<p>He’s a criminal lawyer.</p>
<p>I’m glad they found this girl, and I will be happier when they get her on another boat. She is still rolling around in a mastless boat on the Indian Ocean. I’d be beside myself at that. Nobody is “watching” her.</p>
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<p>Did you put your child in a carseat as an infant? Get him or her vaccinated? Did you put smoke detectors in your home? Keep poisons out of reach? Make sure he or she was not alone in a bath as a baby/toddler? If you answered yes to any of these, then you were the keeper of your child’s safety at some point in time.</p>
<p>Poetgrl,</p>
<p>Stop making sense. I forgot he was a lawyer. Just being argumentative, I suppose. ;)</p>
<p>There are many risks that we take every day. Driving our kids in a car, letting them drive the car all have tremendous risks of horrible injury. The type of risk of letting a 16 year old sail out like that is outside of that circle. </p>
<p>t</p>
<p>We not only allowed but encouraged and paid for our son’s flying lessons and solo flight when he was 16 and a junior in HS. Does tat make us bad parents?</p>
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<p>I assume that your son had someone in the cockpit with him? </p>
<p>My daughter has gone rock climbing in the Tetons, but with a world class guide.</p>
<p>She has also white water kyaked in quite a few remote places…with a world class guide and teacher… now that she is 19 she is certified to be a guide herself.</p>
<p>She solo’d for three days in the wilderness, but with adults nearby in case of emergency.</p>
<p>I’m really not opposed to adventures. I am not in favor of sending 16 year old girls on a solo trip around the world in an increasingly pirate filled ocean. There are real dangers that can be faced in a group which simply cannot be overcome alone. I just don’t think when my 16 year old daughter says she understands the dangers in a situation, that she actually understands completely.</p>
<p>Would you have sent your 16 year old son on a solo trip around the world in a plane? (this is an actual question.)</p>
<p>I was looking at some news stories where people left comments and there were a bunch of people who were saying things like this was better than kids who are couch potatoes who play video games…I find it amazing that people don’t realize that these are two extremes and there is LOTS in between???</p>
<p>Toblin…I do not see your son’s solo flight as the same as this girl’s trip. This girl presumably also did some solo sails of shorter duration before this. If you want to compare apples to apples…I would compare her around the world trip with your son flying around the world unassisted. There is no help nearby. Oh, and please add in your son flying through major storms, like Abby has had in the Indian Ocean.</p>
<p>My son became a certified Dive master at 16, along with my H. They both spent months on training and education and always dives with a partner. It’s one of the first lessons they teach you as you begin training.</p>
<p>Even after all of these years, each dive they have made has been unpredictable. You can’t be complacent. You may understand your gear and the conditions, and still face harrowing conditions. </p>
<p>Sometimes it is user error, or weather/ocean currents, or a multitude of things that can create the risk. One of the scariest things is called a shallow water blackout. Just recently a NAVY Seal trainee died during a blackout, like this. One time exiting a night dive, a current pulled my son up on the rocks and hit him in the head. Fortunately, his dive buddy saw it and pulled him to safety.</p>
<p>I allowed my son to learn this activity and obtain the training because I wanted him to learn to dive, safely. It was his passion.</p>
<p>If he asked me to allow him to solo dive or freedive, I would have told him no - and not helped him on the path.</p>
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<p>Look up the definition of the word “solo”</p>
<p>For me the red flag in these stunts is the publicity-seeking behavior on the part of the parents. If the point of the dangerous stunt is for the child to have an adventure, or realize her dream, then why does it all have to be done with great fanfare?</p>
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<p>If your son had wanted to take a solo flight around the world, would you have financed and supported that particular adventure?</p>