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Water Wars, Watchful Parents, and Safe Neighbourhoods

Letters to the editor: June 2026

In “Leave the Kids Alone” (March/April), Simon Lewsen argues that we are helicopter-parenting children, who are not in as much danger as parents perceive, and that they in fact benefit from being empowered, age appropriately, to navigate life’s challenges. In Winnipeg, from age nine onward, my classmates and I all took city buses to school, and we thought nothing of taking those same buses across town after school. And then home again, after dark, in the winter. By contrast, I now often pull up behind a school bus dropping off a child right in front of their house, and the parent is out at the curb, making sure that the child doesn’t—I don’t know—sprint off to join the circus? in the ten steps between the bus and the house. At a time when parents are so fearful of children’s physical safety in the wider world, some of the greatest dangers lurk inside the children’s own homes, online, where parents are often far less vigilant. But, hey, at least the........

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