Recently, an interesting article appeared in the New York Times, and so many of my friends and followers reached out to me about it. Is it true? Do you really do it?
The topic of the article is about a particular ‘game’ we play in the Netherlands which is called ‘dropping’. In a nutshell, children are blindfolded and taken (by car) to an undisclosed location, and the group then has to find their way back home. Yes! It is true, it happens. Yes, I did it, my children have done it, and we loved it!
Funnily enough (as the article states) I never realised this activity is something typically and solely Dutch. Apparently, it doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world! (This is the reason I love to travel, read international newspapers and know and listen to people from different backgrounds and from all over the world. The things we take for granted are not always the norm elsewhere!)
So yes, droppings. A few years ago we were having dinner at friends, and the topic of a dropping came up. Before I knew it, two groups were formed and my children plus those of our friends were blindfolded and dropped in the early twilight. The smaller ones (7 to 9 year old) were taken to a street in our neighbourhood, about 4 blocks away (vaguely familiar territory because one of their friends lives there). The group of older children (10 to 12) were taken a bit further, to an adjacent neighbourhood they wouldn’t immediately recognise. Obviously, they were not given any mobile phones!
Within 40 minutes all of them were back, super happy and super disappointed that the dropping had been way too easy! They had LOVED the experience! Obviously, this was not the kind of hardcore dropping the article is talking about. (I don’t think I would like my children to walk around the forest for hours and hours in the middle of the night.) But a ‘miniature’ dropping like this is just so much fun!
I have never been a scout, but I have been dropped as a teenager as well. Again, not as hardcore as the article states — in the twilight and not so far away from home. I remember it as exciting, exhilarating, and SUCH FUN!
Dutch parenting is interesting in this way — we let our children cycle to school and sports by themselves from around the age of 11. They are used to navigate the way by themselves and deal with traffic. Yes, they get lost! But they always find their way back home. With this in mind, perhaps the idea of a dropping is less daunting to us?
I would love to hear your thoughts on this!
xxx Esther
(Image from the New York Times)
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