The start of this article caught my eye...
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I’m nine years old, and it’s a sunny summer day. School’s out and there’s nowhere to be, nothing I have to do. I say goodbye to my mother, grab my bike and ride to my best friend’s house. “Can Lisa come out and play?” We walk in the woods near the playground. The sunlight filters down through green leaves and dances across the wet-weather creek where we go to hunt for frogs. Birds are singing, and distantly I can hear shouts from the kids spinning the merry-go-round at top speed. My friend has walked ahead, following the creek, and for few moments, I’m alone with the sound of my breath.

Does this sound like your childhood? If you’re my age—thirty-seven—or older, it may. Most children raised in the United States in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s spent a great deal of time playing unsupervised outdoors, often in the company of a mixed-age group of other children.

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I moved a lot as a kid. I do remember times when I wandered into nearby woods and climbed trees, threw dirt clods like 'grenades' to battle imagined giant insects, and other typical 'making a day of it' things. Climbing trees, sunshine, grass, open air. It was a 'natural playground'... instead of being consigned to a room or a prefab 'play area' . (and most 'playgrounds' are gone these days due to law suits, etc. how did we ever survive!?!?!)
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Anyway, thought this was an interesting article on 'Raising Free Range Kids' -- be they 'pagan' or Jedi...
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>> Paganism and the Free-Range Kid
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VERY worth the time to read and consider.
(plus some good source references & links)

I've read a bit on free range kids because parents are getting into real trouble. It's crazy. So we're looking at how to balance that. I'm going to read this article when I can later. Thanks for sharing it!