You need to be able to tell your kid "I'm busy, go play" sometimes.  It is good for both parties.

I work at a climbing gym where kids are often running around while their parents do super cool stuff on the wall. Whenever I hear members grumbling a bit about there being too many kids around, I just smile. This is life, my dudes! 

The trick is to mindfully ignore your kids but keep their faces away from screens at the same time.  Not sure how that's done these days because it wasn't an issue when my kids were growing up.

My kids have had pretty limited access to screens, so they get bored a lot. But they're learned that if they tell me they're bored, I find them something to do. But that something is almost always chores. My kids are great at entertaining themselves although it has, on occasion, led to them painting the floor or dragging all the furniture in their bedroom into a single corner. There's a price to mindful neglect sometimes.

Thanks for this article! Appreciate any and all ideas from this community as we learn to mindfully unparent our kid as well. More freedom in open spaces (parks, malls, etc.) has worked for us so far.

It also requires that as a society, we build back our tolerance for children in public spaces, as annoying and distracting as they can be, and create safe environments where lightly supervised kids can roam freely.

The quote above rings especially true today. It's not hard to see the looks from other adults when you stroll in to a typically kid-free space with your kid.

A much better turn of phrase than "benign neglect," with the same intended result, huzzah!

This reminds me of a 2014 article from Atlantic Monthly about (among other things) changes to childhood freedom over time: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/hey-parents-leave-those-kids-alone/358631/