How to be a Norwegian parent: let your kids roam free, stay home alone, have fun – and fail

Nila, 10, and Arion, eight, in their local park in Stavanger, Norway. Photograph: Marie von Krogh/The Guardian

It’s 1.30pm. Nila and Arion arrive home after finishing school for the day. They let themselves in, make some food, then sit down to do homework, or practise piano, or do the housework they’ve been asked to do. Their parents won’t be home for a few hours yet. The children sometimes go out with friends to play in the street or wander the fields. The only real rule is no screen time unless everything else has been taken care of.

So far, so normal, perhaps, except the sister and brother are just 10 and eight, and they’ve been living this kind of unsupervised mini-adult life for years.