Daddy Clay: Yesterday my 5 year old comes up to me and asks, "Hey dad, can I play soccer at the field two blocks away, by myself?" Come right on back and I'll say to you what I said to him.

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I said yes. Of course, I took certain precautions.

We're just gonna put this right here on you. This is a GPS unit. Now if you get lost, what I want you to do is push the power button, walk to a street, and go wherever the nice lady on the machine tells you. Because you're gonna be out on your own, and you're gonna be completely independent, here's what we want you to do. Just keep that cell phone and daddy will be on the other end talking to you the whole time.

At this point, I should probably disclose that I live on the campus of a private boarding school, which is a gated and guarded community. Lots of athletic facilities and fields. A residential population of students and adults. So it's a relatively safe place for a child to have independence and to be out on their own. Which is something we've always allowed our kids to do. But because I live in this unusual circumstance, I'm curious - What do other families do? So, of course, I went on the Interwebs. From my unscientific survey of surveys online, about two-thirds of parents say it's okay for kids to be outside alone somewhere between the ages of 6 and 11. Two-thirds of parents online surveyed also reported that they would never in hell let their child between 6 and 11 years old go out by themselves. Which means essentially parents online think it's fine for dumber, worse, less responsible parents to send their kids outside alone, but of course, the respondents never would. The general consensus among parents seems to be it was okay when we were kids. We could ride our bikes across town, get a sack of candy, shove it down out throats, three or four thousand calories at a time, and come on home and that would be fine but now, things are different.

Actually, things are different these days. Things for kids are a lot safer than they were when we were kids in the 1970's and 80's. Look at the crime statistics. All crimes against children have declined steadily since the 1970's. And the big daddy, the great fear of all parents, abductions. Abductions have gone down steadily as well. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, only about 115 children were abducted by a stranger last year. 115 may seem like a lot. It is a lot. I don't mean to sound callous. But statistically, it's still extremely rare. Why are we so scared? Duh, I mean there's so many SVU reruns on TBS they might as well call if the Child Abduction Network. I mean, a small child in danger is the most effective form of melodrama known to man. Just ask CNN.com.

So, what's really dangerous to kids? Potentially fatal to kids? Swimming pools, guns in the home, and worst of all, cars. Traffic accidents pose the greatest danger to kids in our society. So anyone who tries to preserve their child's safety by putting them in a car may be fundamentally misunderstanding the stats.

Not surprised to hear of a parenting movement afoot based on trying to produce more independent kids. If you want to know more about that, you want to check out "Free-Range Kids" by Lenore Skenazy. Obviously, allowing kids to play on their own outside the home is not right for every family and not right for every circumstance. We want to hear from you. Leave us a comment on our video. Go to DadLabs.com and join a conversation. We want to thank our sponsors, BabyBjorn. Great way to promote independence early on. Potty training with this great potty from BabyBjorn. We'll see you next time on Quality Time.