MMario,

Your question about the practical considerations of my suggestion was quite valid. That's why I tried to carefully word my suggestion. But my post was more about the presuppositions active in the posts on this thread.

In the 70s and 80s a lot of us boomers were dragging our kids to festivals and none of the ones my wife and I patronized had much in the way of activities aimed specifically at kids. And we and the kids didn't miss them. We naively assumed that the opportunity to mess around in a nifty outdoor venue where great music was to be heard was all that was needed. I remember thinking that I would have loved such an opportunity when I was a kid.

But your response did get me thinking. My wife and I consciously tried to allow our daughter to be as "free range" a child as we felt was appropriate. But there were always clear and simple rules, consistently enforced, about her changing location and reporting back and we watched her very carefully early on, though she might not have been aware of it.

Even in the "good old days" (early 80s) we were not the least bit nonchalant about her safety. We were appropriately paranoid for the time and place. The idea was to let her experiment with independence in a setting where at least a few dangers were minimized. For example, the chances of being run over by a school bus on a campground were pretty low.

However, even then we understood that if an evil doer is sufficiently motivated, no one is safe anywhere.