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A 37-kilometre, four-day backpacking trip capped a summer of outdoor adventures for the four Froese kids, who range in age from four to nine.

Each child carried a pack as they accompanied their parents over mountains and across meadows, hiking through Elk Lakes Provincial Park on the border of B.C. and Alberta.

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“I was crying when we got back to the truck on the last day. I was so proud of them all,” said mother Roxanna Froese, the Chilliwack-based Instagrammer behind @intherivervalley.com.

The photographer is one of a growing number of parents encouraging their kids to be independent and adventurous at a time when childhood is generally becoming more sanitized.

Sometimes referred to as free-range parenting — a term coined by Lenore Skenazy, a New York journalist who, in 2008, allowed her nine-year-old son to take the subway by himself, thus earning her the nickname “America’s Worst Mom” — the movement flies in the face of so-called helicopter parenting and urges parents to let their kids take calculated risks.