Helping Kids Sprout Wings of Independence

Helping Kids Sprout Wings of Independence
There are many ways that you can help kids become more independent. Max Topchii/Shutterstock
Jeff Minick
Updated:

The most amazing story I’ve heard in years is told by H.D. Miller in “The Abernathy Boys Go for a Ride.” In 1910 when Bud Abernathy, age 10, and his brother Temple, age 6, saddled up their horses and rode without adult supervision from Oklahoma to New York City to see their hero, former president Theodore Roosevelt, give a speech. Recently returned from an African expedition, Roosevelt invited the boys to ride with him in a parade.

Bud and Temple then shipped their horses home, bought an automobile, and drove back to Oklahoma. A year earlier, they had also ridden by themselves from Oklahoma to Sante Fe, New Mexico and back, a 1,300 mile odyssey.

Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
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